Saving the world or the coffee?

Heres a funny side to zodiac signs:

Arians - Arians always talk like they are about to set out on a mission to save the world while all they will probably save is the milk for the coffee from burning over.

Aquarians - Aquarians are always dreaming of saving the world fifty years in the future but all they will really accomplish is to decide which Darshini to have their next cup of coffee in.

Cancerians - Cancerians will get equally emotional about their coffee or about saving the world but will quickly forget about both as well.

Geminis - Geminis will switch back and forth between saving the world and having their daily cuppa at every given instance.

Librans - They are too lazy to bother getting up from the sofa to save the milk for their cup of coffee from burning much less endeavour to save the world.

Sagittarians - Sagis can never decide whether it is more important to save the world or to drink their cup of coffee. Finally, they will do what the rest of the world does.

Scorpios - Scorpios will sometimes talk like they care about saving the world, but in reality, they live life in the present and all that matters in everyday life is the daily dose of Latte.

Capricons - Capricons will assert that it is everyone's moral duty to save the world when the time comes. Cup of coffee comes later.

For the rest, I don't know anyone well enough to comment on how they would react to saving the world.

Demian - Temples

"Imagine a temple in your dreams
Where even all my fears won't make you disappear

Imagine these feelings we could share
You'd keep them in your head, even when I'm dead

Imagine now, imagine now (but you can't), Imagine...

Remember this ringing in your ears
Sounded like my biggest fear and you made it disappear

Remember now these feelings that we shared
How they whisper in your ears even when I'm far away

Remember now this temple in my dreams
Where even all your fears won't make me disappear

Remember now these moments that we shared
Now they will stay in your head even when I'm dead

Remember now, remember now

I won't say goodbye this time
I won't let you die inside my mind"

Dark but beautiful song from a French Band. Check it out here

Sphering, WWRafting, and Bruar Canyoning, Scotland

Well, what can be the perfect way to end a two week long trip to UK and scenic Scotland than two days of extreme adventure. This time I was with my family which is generally expected to be more of a sight-seeing trip. However, I seem to have given my brother-in-law the adventure bug and he also convinced my sister to take part in our adrenalin shots.

Nae Limits near Perth in Scotland is an award winning Adventure Club and is known for White water rafting, adventure tubing, zorbing and extreme canyoning among other things. We tried Sphering (zorbing), white water rafting on the Tummel River and Bruar Canyoning.

Sister and BIL posing before their roll

Sphering is this gaint rubber ball that they strap you inside and roll it down a hill. It was a weird and bumpy ride and lasted all of forty seconds. The second time around, my sister decided to give the ball a very hard shove before it took off. BIL and me were strapped inside and screaming as the ball made us do somersaults at something like ten kms per hour. Which is quite a bit of somersaulting. Overall, different but not worth the money.

The Sphering site, Nae Limits

Negotiating rapids on the Tummel River

The afternoon was spent white water rafting on the Tummel River. The last time I tried this was exactly a year ago on the Sita Nadi in Agumbe and I was disappointed. I volunteered for the front seat in the raft and got it without much trouble unlike last time. :) Most of the rapids are a grade 3, but there is two tier waterfall right at the end and is rated grade5. That fall was amazing and we took it going backwards! Apparently, in every rafting trip, atleast one of the rafts capsize on that rapid but ours was a record of sorts with none of the rafts turning over. Again, rafting was good but nowhere close to the adrenalin shots that me and BIL were expecting to get high on.

Going down a Grade5 rapid in Reverse!

The best part came last. Bruar Canyoning. This involved one and a half hours of high octane cliff jumps, waterfall slides, scrambling and rappelling. All this on a furious river rushing down a gorge. There are very few places in the world that offer this kind of an experience I reckon. It was just mindblowing. It was like this natural water amusement park ride laid out by nature. In an amusement park, its perfectly safe. This has a high degree of danger to it and thats what made it all the more exhilarating. I volunteered to do a cliff jump first and ended up getting swept into a cave. Finally, I had to be hauled out by a rope. That was scary. Luckily, the cave was a dead end! BIL and me couldn't stop grinning after the experience. We thought it was totally worth the trip. All in all, I would recommend Canyoning to any guy who is not scared of water and has good swimming skills.

BIL executing the jump

Our Canyoning guide Mia, hauling me out of the cave!

Whoa, thats high! Gotta be mad to jump off from there.

Taking Wing Part 2 (Paragliding at Yelagiri, Vellore) - May 30-31, 2009

Did I mention the practice flights from the BSF hill that we christened as the "Firing Hill or Bullet Hill"? Perhaps I did not. That is for another day and time. Now, shall we concentrate on our latest achievement of successfully completing high altitude solo flying? Yes, I suppose you must listen to what I have to say for you have the misfortune of chancing on my blog at this opportune moment.

Take off at roughly 1100metres above sea level and landing at 450 metres above sea level. Need I say more? Indeed I must. Yelagiri came to our rescue while Nandi repeatedly played spoil sport with the weather. One weekend saw us getting up at absurd morning hour to set off on the drive to Yelagiri. The highway is brilliant I might add, letting one cover over 150kms in less than two hours in the morning when traffic is sparse.

Saturday was not a very good start. My tandem flight with Vrata was barely ten minutes while Bharat and Naveen had both managed 45min+ tandems from Nandi2. I was not very happy with my short flight. The tandem glider it seems is a beast to control. You need to really pull at the brakes with all your might and even then the glider responds slowly and almost in protest. The landing happened right in the middle of thorny brush and Vrata happily used me as a cushion and got away unscathed. :)

The evening saw us waiting for the winds to settle down from the Hanuman takeoff but to no avail. I spent the time catching up on some reading of Ashok Banker's Ramayana Book4.

On Saturday night, I was still not sure whether I was ready for my solo the next morning given that my tandem was of a very short duration. However, I decided to take the "leap of faith" alone the next morning since I was fresh from a good sleep the previous night.

Wiggling into the harness proved a challenge on my first solo flight. I finally gave up and decided to fly standing. Landing went more or less according to plan with Vrata guiding me on the radio. Didn't really enjoy much of the first flight since there was a lot going on through my head at the time. We came back to RK take off in the afternoon for a second flight. This time, once in the air, I let go of the brakes and pulled myself into the harness with both my hands. (Its really amazing to see that the glider which can be packed into a backpack can actually carry your weight in the air while holding rock steady. You really begin to appreciate the engineering marvel. ) After that, it was really smooth sailing. I turned back to catch a view of the Yelagiri range which I am told extends for about 8kms from one end to the other. It was really a sight to behold. I was flying at the level of the mountains and from up there and close, you could see that the mountain was really lush green and beautiful as compared to the hazy brownish green look that you get when you look at it from the ground. Up there in the air, everything is very calm and pleasant and you can hear the whishing sound of the air through your glider. I only wished that I could ridge soar, so that I could stay up in the air for about an hour. Impatience, my lad. All in due course of time. Landing went well again with me landing on my feet after completing a couple of eights above the landing site.

The third flight in the evening happened in low winds. The landing site was much further than the previous sites and the lack of wind meant that I sank faster than I expected. This meant I could not reach the designated landing site and my landing turned out to be less than perfect. :P However, its all part of the learning experience I guess and I escaped unharmed.

Vrata says that we graduated to the flying club with "flying colours". Personally, I think there is quite some way to go before we perfect the landing approach. Take off seems like child's play now in comparison. But I guess thats only because I have now had seven take offs while I have only done two proper landing approaches. I guess I can maintain a flight log now. I could probably log about 50 minutes of flying time total in the book now. :P

By the way, Bharat gets adventurous on his second solo flight and gets a in-flight video. This is a must see!

To sign off, I must say that I have always been a little scared of heights and overcoming this fear was indeed an "uplifting" experience (and how!) and memories I will cherish for a very long time to come.

Thanks to Vrata, Rajesh and Robin for helping make my dream successful. And of course Bharath for learning with me and also for taking my videos.

Taking Wing (Paragliding @ Nandi Hills)

"I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky."

8 different people, 1 club, 1 mission ...
Title: Basic Hill Flying course
Directed by: Aurovrata Venet (Paragliding Instructor)
Production house: Bangalore Mountaineering Club
Venue: Hoskote & Chotta hills (Nandi hills base)
Dates : 24th, 25th, 31st Jan. & 1st Feb. 09

Kitty(Krishna), Bhat(Anand), Bacat(Bharath) and I set out to see if we could fly solo. Everyone has heard of tandem paragliding flights where you are strapped to a harness along with a trained pilot. The pilot has all the controls. All you do is sit back and enjoy the scenery below. Now whats the adventure in that. Vrata had the answers...

Three days of ground handling training at a dry lake bed @ Hoskote prepared us for the reverse launch technique. For the uninitiated (which most of us are), refer to launching techniques here.

Kitty practicing some ground handling at Hoskote

The small take off zone at Chotta hills (which is actually the base of Nandi hills roughly about 10X10m), and the moderate steady winds in the mornings and late evenings makes reverse launching the most suitable launch technique.

The above is a picture of the wind sock. A steady wind sock indicates a steady wind ideal for launching.

It may look easy, but believe me, its not. It took us three days to get the basics right. Even after that, we still needed to abort some launches since the wing used to come up sideways or due to too strong or too low winds or because we were just plain scared in the beginning. Here is a look at what a strong wind can do to your ego. (Courtesy Bhat)



Here, the sideward wind seems to take the glider to the left and pulls Bhat along with him as he turns around to launch. He has no option but to kill the glider but has a hard time doing it since he is not facing the glider at this point.

Some of the things to keep in mind are the A-risers, leading edge of the wing, brakes, harness, strapping up, wind velocity and direction, flaring and a lot more. Suffice to say, there is a pretty steep learning curve initially at least.

Rajesh doing some pre-flight checks before take-off

Thanks to Kitty and his brilliant camera for all the videos. He patiently stood there and took a video of everyone's flight so that we can have something to show others and also watch it again and again and get excited all over again. Will put up Kitty's flight also here soon.



I managed to run like crazy and also seemed to get a lucky gust of wind just as I took off which took me really high up compared to others. The typical flight from Chotta hills lasts about 50 seconds. You take off from the launch site. As soon as you clear the relief of the hill, you turn right, fly parallel to the mountain for about twenty seconds and then turn left back into the wind for a landing in the fields below. A small 'Z'. However, when I turned in for the landing, I had barely lost altitude. As a result, I ended up doing one and a half S-curves to lose altitude before I could finally land safely on the fields. Just before you land, you pull on both brakes to "flare". This brakes your forward momentum. If you do it just right, you ll be able to just step down right at the spot kind of like how a chopper lands. If you don't do time it properly, you'll end up running a couple of metres or fall like a deadweight once you lose speed. As it were, my landing was perfect. :P By now, you might have noticed that I like to brag about my flight. Well, what do you expect? I just flew solo for the first time in my life!



Here, you can see how Bharath didn't pick up enough forward momentum on account of low winds. As a result, he had to do a last minute hop and run to take off right at the edge! It took me sometime to gain the confidence to just let go and run like crazy. The first time before I took off, I was nervously wondering if I would be able to generate enough forward momentum to take off before the edge. Once I saw a couple of people taking off, especially Bharath, who has a 100% success rate till now (two launch attempts and two successful take offs), I decided I could do it too. On my third attempt, I said a silent prayer and launched. And by God, what a feeling it was to be air-borne. Mindblowing! By far the most adrenaline pumping thing I have ever done in my life. Going back and listening to "Learning to fly" by Pink Floyd, I could really appreciate Roger Wate's thoughts and connect with the same emotions.

In the end, all the training came to those 2 flights of roughly a minute's duration, but it was all very well worth it. I'm definitely going back again. I always used to love water, waterfalls, rivers, beaches and oceans. Now I think I have found my new love, the sky! Can there be anything more liberating than to spread your wings and fly.

Big thanks to Rajesh and Arvind for their patience, encouragement and amazing tips! You guys rock!

For once man has tasted flight he will forever walk the earth with eyes turned skywards.
For there he has been and there he longs to return.

--Leonardo Da Vinci

Soaring in the skies (Part 1)

I always wanted to go to Kamshet in Pune to do the Paragliding course. However, I could never find the correct time or the company to go all the way to Pune. Then BMC comes as a saviour by organising the course in Nandi hills right here in Bangalore! The moment I read about this, I pounced at it. After aggressive marketting, I convinced both Kitty and Bhat to come along. Starting this weekend. I can hardly wait for the weekend to start!

Meanwhile, this is a link to a solo flights partaken by one of the students who trained under Vrata last week at Nandi hills. I was blown away after seeing this!

http://pgmassala.blogspot.com/2009/01/alisons-first-flight-at-chota-hill.html

I'm sure anyone who's seen this will want to take the course and learn for himself. More updates and photos on my experience after the weekend. Stay tuned!

The two week HogaBoozathon

Wow, its been two weeks of just eating and drinking out. Ever since Sundaresh Kumar came to Bangalore for a month long holiday, its been a fight of gastric juices over the food stuffs. Luckily, my stomach has proved the superior opponent thus far. Just for fun, lets make a list of all the places I visited in the last two weeks in no particular order -

1. Banjara, Jayanagar
2. Kaati Zone, Church Street
3. Barbeque Nation, JP Nagar
4. Gufha, Jayanagar
5. Corner House, Jayanagar
6. Mojos, Residency Road
7. The Only Place, Museum Road
8. Windsor, Jayachamaraj Road
9. Bombay Post, Airport Road
10. Tandoor Express, Banashankari
11. Kamat Upachar, Tumkur Road
12. Pizza Corner, Jayanagar

Not to mention the six meals at Sakleshpur. Phew! No more eating for another two weeks.

Musings ...

"What is life if not just a series of memorable moments..."

"Life is not measured by how many breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away."

"What is the use of living to be eighty years old, if you can't enjoy the present the way you want to."

"Don't forget to enjoy the journey while you pursue a destination."

While I don't claim to have said any of these, I need to keep reminding myself every once in a while that these are the only wise sayings that really matter in life. Cheers to that!

The Road to nowhere

Venue - Sakleshpur, a deserted road
Time - 8:30 PM, Dec 26, 08
Background - A scarlett red Swift, 4 friends, a carton of beers and coke, 80 kmph, a starry night

A cardboard box magically appeared, filled itself up with 4 bottles KF premium, a 1,.5l Coke bottle and a DSP Black. Courtesy of a local wine shop. The Swift came to a total stop on a small tar road winding through the dark countryside. Paddy(?) farms on both sides of the road. Hardly any space for another car to pass. But it was a deserted road. What are the chances that another car would pass by at that time of the night in that part of the country on that particular night? Well mathematically speaking, tending to nil, nada, zero, sonne, null, cipher. The boot was thrown open. Flickering hazard lights playing proxy to strobe lights. Sony Xplod acting as DJ. The Verve - Catching the butterfly, Porcupine Tree - Arriving Somewhere but not here - playing back to back. Clear sky punctured by a thousand radiant stars to form a million patterns. Total pyschaedelic moment. Fifteen minutes of pure intense heaven.

Verily one of the best moments in the trip. Much obliged guys. Hope we have more such moments :)

Mood - Dave Matthews Band - If I had it all

Random Ramblings

Hmm... Having nothing to write about means only one of two things.
a. Nothing worth writing about is happening in my life. Thats a depressing thought.
b. I have lost the flair/enthusiasm to write. A tad better than the first but still bad.

Need to retrospect. Every once in a while you see days are slipping by and you have nothing to show for it, by that I mean fond memories. Having bad memories from a period is also good, because it means you learnt something along the way and have something to take back. Having nothing is like a black hole. You never want to be there. Even the poorest person who has nothing to eat has a story to tell. But what story does a middling average individual (can such a person be called an individual) have to tell. Worse, who would be interested even if he did. Never be in the middle, never be the usual, the common, the mundane. Its just not worth it. Maybe its comfortable.

My mom and I had a discussion the other day. Everyone wants to get into that groove. To settle into a rhythm. No disturbances. Like smooth flow. Predictable. You can sum it up in an equation with a few variables. No corner cases. No instabilities. Pah! What fun is that. You need ups and downs. Sine waves, like the heart beat, it is rhythmic, but it still has its crests and troughs. That makes life interesting. Unpredictable, change, highs, lows - what have you.

Turbulent flow does not have an equation. It only has an approximation at best.

When you have nothing to do, you think of something depressing. Instead of the opposite. That defines the type of person you are. Your natural tendency. You don't strive to be depressing. Its just who you are. I try to surround myself with people who swing towards the positive. That helps you keep a positive frame of mind.

Lethargy -
Not wanting to do anything. Just stay in bed and not even sleep. But just lie there. Its a horrible feeling. Unless you have had a very tiring week. Never be in that position. Jump out of bed and dance. Sing a song. Tell a joke. Scream out loud. Get rid of that sloth that will eat you up like a cancer.

Enough self gyaan. Don't you have nothing better to do than to be sitting in front of a computer in your cubicle on a Friday night and typing out this nonsense. Point! Publish Post. Exit... Pfft...

The under water ocean safari at Goa! Oct 2nd - 3rd, 2008

Scuba Diving!!! This is the second of the adventure sports that I am now taking off the list of have-to-dos after white water rafting. The other items on the list at present are:

1. Skiing
2. Paragliding
3. Cliff Diving
4. Bungee Jumping
5. Sky Diving
not necessarily in that order

A four day vacation at Goa kicked off on the evening of Sept 30th. A long weekend and late planning meant we couldn't find direct bus to Panjim and had to take the tortuous route of Bangalore-Karwar-Madgaon-Panjim. 17 hours of travel is not a pleasant experience! Only four guys made the cut this time. Krishna, Mithun, Adarsh and I. This time, I got everyone involved in the booking so that they would realize the effort involved in organizing everything. :P That meant Krishna did the research, Mithun did the scuba-diving booking and Adarsh did the bus tickets booking and I did all the co-ordinating between the group. What I love to do in any situation, managing!

We actually landed on the first day of the season opening at Goa. If we had arrived a week earlier, even the beaches would have been off limits due to the monsoon. Imagine the timing! To add to that, we were also the very first batch of scuba divers for this year's season. A trip of firsts!

Since it was a four day extravaganza, its almost impossible for me to go over the trip event by event. I will stick to the highlights of the trip.

Before I even start, let me first tell you that the trip was a culinary orgasm of sorts for me. Never before have I tasted so many different dishes and great food in a single three day stretch. Let me list down all the amazing dishes that I tasted. Every day and every meal was at a different restaurant and each was better than the other. The highlights are:

1. Oct 1st - Lunch @ the Ritz, Panjim
White snapper masala fry plus vegetable biryani - brilliantly soft and fresh fish and amazing masala in the biryani. Mithun had the fish thali from which I also got a taste of some crab meat and mussels curry which were okay, but a pain to break away all the shells.
2. Oct 1st - Dinner @ Jamies - European Fast Food, Bagha beach
('Over the flames' has shifted to Candolim and this restaurant come up in its place, but the food in this place was amazing as well. Sadly, I could not make it to Over the flames this time.)
Calamari fritters - (squid rings shallow fried)
Tiger Prawns - (forgot the dish name; these are huge prawns marinated in some amazing masala; simply exquisite)
Chicken chettinad + idiyappam - south indian combi

Tiger Prawns @ Jamies

3. Oct 2nd - Lunch @ Xbar, Bagha beach
Kingfish Cafreal + 3 tawa rotis - Goan preparation in coriander and spinach. Superb!
4. Oct 2nd - Dinner @ Platain Leaf, Calangute circle
Usual North Indian fare since Adarsh was tired of all the exotic food since he is a veggie
5. Oct 3rd - Lunch @ Capricorn, Calangute Beach
Jumbo Prawns biryani + Butter Garlic and Lemon Barracuda
The Barracuda meat was good, but too bland and the quantity way too much. Mithun's Grilled King Fish was better. The biryani was out of the world again.
6. Oct 3rd - Dinner @ The Infantaria
Jhinga masala (Prawns preparation - An ancient Hyderabadi recipe) - superlative
Bebinca and vanilla ice-cream - A traditional Goan dessert that I even got back home for my parents and colleagues since it was so good.
7. Oct 4th was usual south and north indian fare. If I had my way, I would have tasted three more new dishes at least, but the rest of them were already complaining that we were spending way too much on food.

NOTE: Dont miss The Infantaria, Jamie's European Fast Food, Over the Flames or Brittos at any cost if you ever visit Goa and are a non-vegetarian who likes to try out seafood and new stuff. Phew! I got exhausted listing all that out.

The other thing that I love about Goa is all those deserted well maintained roads. Since we had hired bikes (which is a must by the way if you want to loaf about in Goa unhindered), it was a welcome change to be able to rip on the roads with the wind on your face and no traffic to hinder you. In spite of the rented measly 100cc bikes, it was hardly difficult to do speeds of 80kmph even on non-highways.

Our stay at Bagha beach was very close to the beach. Being off-season, we managed to get a really good room for the four of us (two wide beds plus one extra bedding) for Rs. 500/- per day. It had a fridge, a/c and TV (although TV didnt work) too. The operator at the lodge told us that the same rooms sell for 4000/- during peak season! Thats an 87.5% discount for us! In fact the very next day, he started quoting 800/- for the other customers for the same room. In fact, Mithun's colleagues stayed at the same hotel in November and ended up shelling out 3K per night!

Infantaria had a live band - a Goan trio playing on Friday evening. And although they were only doing covers, the vocalists (alternating between the lead/bass guitarist) had very good voices and it was quite an enjoyable evening of music. Some Austrian tourist and his girlfriend also chipped in with some Austrian number in between and the crowd went mad.

The band @ Infantaria with the Austrian chick

PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) has setup a dive centre at Bagha- Arpora, Goa, where you can not only do dives for pleasure around Goa but also receive the 'Open Water Dive Certification' which allows you to dive anywhere in the world with a buddy. However it doesn't come cheap at 18k for the course. We opted for the 'discover scuba diving' course here, which involved introductory training as well as two open water dives. I think it was well worth the amount (3500 rupees).

The water at Goa was quite murky especially since the monsoons had just stopped and the water was yet to clear up completely. In spite of that, we were able to see a wide variety of coral fish in myriad colours, sting rays, moray eels, lobsters, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and a few varieties of hard and soft coral. Imagine diving at Bali or Maldives or Australia with a dive certification where the water is almost as clear as the water at your local swimming pool if not clearer!

All of us in our dive suits

Anyway all of us came out from the course thinking that we would definitely come back some day to do the open water dive certification.

You can vist Morjim, Mandem and Ashwem if you long stretches of pristine beaches that you can have all to yourself. We saw a huge flock of sea-gulls in Morjim and ended up watching the sun go down sitting in the middle of the sea.

Sunset @ Morjim Beach

Flock of seagulls @ Morjim

The only thing which badly wanted to do but didn't have the time was to go to Dudh sagar falls. I had heard and seen a lot of pictures of the beautiful falls and din't want to miss it. But sadly, we ran out of time...
Overall, the trip was a lot of fun and I dont regret the decision to go to Goa instead of some adventure outing.

Almost Famous!

Tonight, I received a mail from one of the editors of the Bangalore Mirror telling me that they were impressed with my report of our white-water rafting trip at Agumbe and they want to publish it next Monday in their papers. Well I'll be!

I accepted. Lets see if it sees the light of day. Like Anil states, hope its not just some random crawler in the web that came across my blog and played a little joke on me. :)

Bolt out of the B(eijing)lue and swimmimg to match

This Olympics has been significant for me. Not in the least because it is the first Olympics that I am trying to follow (of course I may never have realized if the older ones were significant since I never followed them). Like any proud Indian, I must rejoice that India finally put up a handful of medals on the scoreboard to show the world that this one billion+ nation has some sport left in them.

But thats not of much concern to me. I have been for (and still am in my heart a sprinter) specializing in the 100 metres in my haydays of junior athletics. 11.4 seconds personal best ever is a far cry from the present WR (9.69 sec). I don't by any stretch of imagination imply that I am in the league of Usain Bolt. However, I can connect more with his incredible feat than can most people. It took me four years of intense 7 days a week / 2+ hours a day training to bring down my time from the late 12 seconds down to 11.4 seconds. During the last one year, I hardly made any perceptible improvement to my timing. It was an uphill task to maintain and stay at my best. Usain Bolt made 9.69 seconds seem like a piece of cake. Thats the best and worst part of the 100m sprint. Its over before you know it. Often, I realized after the race that I had just run one. There is no time to think, to react to the situation. From the time the gun goes off, you just run and run hard. You don't even have the time to tell yourself to run faster. It's all over before you can tell yourself. You need to be mentally prepared long before that pistol goes off.

All said and done, its an exhilarating feeling to sprint. I did some quick calculations. 12.5 seconds ( I reckon thats my speed now) for 100 m or 8m/s. . That comes to 28.8 kmph. Thats pretty darn fast still even if only for a brief stint of time. If you consider time lost during initial acceleration or 80m in 8 seconds, I'm doing 36 kmph at full speed! Amazing! Pretty proud of myself. The head rush you get is better than the best chemical high I have known ;)

Michael Phelps shattering all those records in one Olympics. Swimming is the one sport that I pursue regularly nowadays since my torn ligament put paid to my hopes of sprinting again. This is not really a post worth putting here except to remind me of those good old days that I could turn a head with my sprinting. Cheers to sprinting and swimming.

The Chukki brothers, a plundered temple and an 'oceanic' reservoir on August 16th, 2008

The second trip of the 2008 monsoon season turned out to be a trip to a lot of places in one day. After a lot of deliberation and trying to gather a crowd for the trip, the plan swung from Dandeli to Hampi to Chikmagalur to Hogennakal and finally settled on Shivanasamudram at the very last moment. The people were also see-sawing all the way with people like Raghu pulling out because of Varalakshmi and Arun citing a lack of crowd.

Finally Girish, Anirban, Anuj and I set off in a hired Indica with a driver at 6 am from office. Now, my first trip to this famed waterfall was on December 29th, 2007. Although the place seemed not to impress visually at that point of time (we saw two trickles on each branch of the Gaganachukki waterfall at that time. Of course, the first trip holds a special place in my heart for another reason), this time around I was totally mesmerized by the sight in front of me.

Breakfast was bisi bele bath and masala dosa and super strong coffee at the Shivalli restaurant (MTR branch at Channapatna) for me.



The Gaganachukki waterfalls were at their visual best. The recent heavy rains in the whole of Karnataka made our timing to the waterfall perfect. We arrived pretty early and there was a thin crowd which was good. There was a thick mist rising from the base of the waterfall and the waterfall looked like milk gushing down the rocks. I think it would have been even more special if it had been in the middle of a forest and we had to trek a couple of kilometers into the jungle. Would keep all the other noisy tourists away and keep the place pristine clean too. I'll let the photos do the talking since I dont have the repertoire of words to do justice to its beauty.


Bharachukki is less taller, but makes up for it by the sheer breadth of the waterfall. On every side that you turn, you'll see a waterfall gushing down the rocks. If not for the some of the spaces in between where there are trees or vegetation growing, we would have our very own Niagara falls right here close to Bangalore. Simply magnificent! Girish had a Digital SLR from Canon (my own camera fades in comparison) and we spent some time to get a panoramic view of the waterfall using the stitch option. It took us 6 photos side by side to get the entire stretch! (Will be uploaded here once Girish completes the stitching) The places where we took bath in the water the last time was all under several feet of water this time.


We did find one branch of the waterfall where we got close and got a mist spray. Very nice place. I was really tempted to jump into the pool below the waterfall here but better sense prevailed. Currents were really strong and the rocks posed a danger even if I wasn't scared of the water depths. We enjoyed the quiet of the place for a while there.


Posting here a view of the waterfall where I sat right beneath the waterfall last time. No chance this time. There was no chance of even taking out a coracle to the base of the waterfall this time.

A picture of the janardhana idol in Somnathpur garbha griha

We then went to Somnathpur. 40kms from Bharachukki but the roads were so bad, it made it seem like a 100 kms. Have heard that the place resembles Hampi. It was plundered by Tipu Sultan and is now an abandoned temple, but most of the temple is intact. The carvings are exquisite. So are the idols of the Lords. Pretty well maintained heritage site, I was impressed by the beauty of the lawn outside as well the cleanliness of the place.


We then proceeded to the Blue Lagoon island (which is actually the backwaters of the KRS dam) in Mysore. Water, water everywhere. This reservoir is massive! Much much bigger than the Linganamakki reservoir that Honnemardu is famous for. When we asked Anuj if he could swim, he siad, "I feel that I can." We were all bent over with laughter that time. How can you feel such a thing. We remarked, "Lets see how you feel in the water today." I personally felt that we need not have travelled all that distance just to swim. We could have spent more time at the waterfall instead and maybe visited the Shivanasamudram temple where there was place to swim apparently in the river Cauvery.

The entrance to the reservoir is through a private plantation. Before we could enter, an old man with a stick insisted on an entrance fee. He got away with Rs. 100/-. In Anuj's opinion, we paid for an annual membership! Some twenty feet away, another guy stopped us. He also wanted money. We were really pissed off. Told him we already paid 100 rupees. But he said, "You paid my brother, now you have to pay me too!" After much cussing, the chap would not budge at all and Girish sent him off with another 20 rupees.

Of course if you want to swim, which I love to, this reservoir has an endless oppurtunity to swim all day long. Water is quite calm and I am pretty sure there is no danger except for the depth of course. I ventured about 100 - 150 m out, but then returned as the water started getting way too cold in the middle and I was the only one there. Didn't want to suffer a cramp because of the cold.

All in all, a good trip and although there was no strenous trekking or getting into the waterfall, the trip is worth it just to see the waterfalls at their best. To give you an idea, I leave you with a picture of Gaganachukki as we saw it last December!

White Water Rafting? at the Sita Nadi, Agumbe, July 19-20, 08

After a two month break following the Wayanad trip in May, we finally got together again for a WWR trip at the Sita river in Agumbe. While this is probably not the best sites to be doing this, it is the closest, one that we could go in a weekend and come back.

It is generally an uphill task to get everyone to be free at the same time and after a month of advanced planning the dates were set for the third week of July. By the way, this was also the first trip that I organised fully on my own right from finding out details of the trip, book the rafting and the bus tickets. Phew! Tiresome work, but I was determined to make the trip see light of day.

Agumbe is known as the Chirapunji of the south understandably because of the rainfall that it receives during the monsoons. This water is supposed to feed the Sita river as it gushes its way to the Arabian sea forging its way through rapids (or thats what we thought).



Since we had the Saturday to ourselves, we got off at Someshwar. This is a view of the Agumbe ghats from Someshwar at eight in the morning. By the way Adarsh tells us that the hills are not exactly Ghats but just the end of the Deccan plateau from where we descend to the coastal plains in the west. He could be right. Agumbe is just about 850m high which is actually the same height as Bangalore. We initially planned to stay over at Anil's uncle's place at Someshwar but then decided to stay over at the top.

Agumbe has four very scenic falls - Kuudlu Theerta, Onake Abbey, Sirimane falls and Jogi gundi. Of course all of them can only be accessed by a trek which is a very good thing because we don't want bumbling tourists to spoil their pristine beauty by littering the place. However since I was with a group of friends who prefer beer slugging to a three km trek anyday, we had to go the one which had the least trekking to do which was Jogi Gundi.


Nikhil, it is in fact Jogi Gundi and not Joga Gundi like you insisted. Check it up on the net. Don't simply argue unnecessarily. Apparently a rishi 'Jogi' meditated here after which it got its name. Hardly a big falls, but it was a very secluded place surrounded by really tall trees on one side and a fast flowing river on the other. And we had the place all to ourselves. The last time we came here, Nikhil and I jumped off the rock some fifteen feet high straight into the Gundi. This time around, it was too slippery to venture up the rocks. Although the guide/driver told us not to get anywhere near the falls, I usually cannot rest until I have had a dip right below the falls wherever it is. So we did make it there and pose for a few pictures too. Adarsh had the brilliant idea that we should all take off everything we had on. The adventurous lads that we were, we all dived in, removed our undies and even waved them in the air in exultation which was captured on camera for posterity. The difficult part is to try and put the undies back on while staying in deep water since you have nothing to balance on and you can't afford to come out of the water with nothing on!

All in all, a refreshing experience to swim in ice cold water with nothing but nature around you. A delight for the cubicle sitting techie.

Adarsh knew a bajjiwallah near the Sunset Point since his native place is close to Agumbe. Our next stop was there. We quickly became his VIPs and were treated to 58 (35 mangalore bajjis which tasted more like uddina vadas and 23 masala vadas) vadas. With six guys, thats an average of almost 10 per head! We were all confident that it would have touched three digit figures had we not ordered lunch at our hotel in advance which we had yet to eat! Just to give you a comparison, our bajji bills came up to Rs. 160 while our full plate meal lunch was Rs. 108!

This is one photo of the trees by the road to Shimoga on Agumbe which I feel resembles Switzerland, thought to be honest I have never visited yet. This is just to reiterate to people that you don't need to go all the way to Switzerland to experience beauty like this. Its right here in Karnataka.

Dinner and breakfast consisted of piping hot neer dosas, buns and steaming idlis with some lip smacking sagoo at the Hotel Ganesh Prasad. Amazing food! Glad we didn't stay over at the Sita Nadi camp. Would have missed all this amazing food. When we go back to Agumbe the next time, there is no doubt as to where to head for food.

Even the crappy 'Mallya Residency' that we stayed at had this beautiful view from the balcony early in the morning on Sunday. We were initially given to understand that this was a 'resort' which we naturally assumed was Vijay Mallya's. We only later discovered that it was a run down two story lodge. But it served our purpose well enough. We are not luxe travellers in any case. A warm bed and a roof will suffice.

Sita Nadi as seen from the camp. The rafting was a far cry from white water. Poor monsoons this year played spoilt sport and 80% of the time we had to row hard. The biggest rapids lasted a couple of minutes at most. However, the small blue raft that we used for the first half of the run did splash enough water to excite us once every while. We dived into the cool waters for a swim every half hour to break the monotony of the rowing. Our rafting guide Karan from Nepal introduced us to the back somersault of the raft which I was convinced to learn. Once I had got a hang of it, I couldn't stop doing it and this became the adrenalin thrill of the ride. Nikhil and me even managed to get videos of us doing the back flip. Learning how to pull yourself back onto the raft was also a big thrill. I was the only one in the group who could manage it. Others had to be pulled back on by someone inside the raft.


In the beginning all of us were fighting to get the front seats in the raft since that was where all the action would be. Nikhil and me even pushed each other of the boat even before we started off. But post lunch, people were fighting to stay at the back since they wanted to nap! The second boat after lunch was a bigger grey boat which felt like a Merc and we could hardly feel any of the rapids on it. They seemed like supressed speed breakers. Our guide Karan did get friendly with us after a while and told us a lot of interesting stories about the rafting in the north. In Nepal, there is apparently a rapid named 'Dead Man'. Any guy who falls of his raft in that raft is a dead man. Which is how it got his name. He also said that the Nepalese rafting guides are very much in demand for their services throughout the world.

The entire rafting actually lasted from ten in the morning to five thirty in the evening! Thoroughly exhausted at the end of it. But the trip was definitely a change from the usual trekking trips. Around four o' clock in the evening, we got off the rafts and lay down on a island rock in the middle of the river. All of us dozed off for almost half an hour under the warm sun. After that Macy was reluctant to get back into the raft and get wet again. But he had no choice. After the end of all the rafting, we had to carry the raft on our heads uphill for about 100 metres to load it back on the jeep.

As I edit this piece a couple of weeks later, Agumbe reported heavy rains in the last week of July and the first week of August. My only complaint is that if we had gone there a couple of weeks later, the rafting would have given us a better thrill. Oh well, there is always a next time!

Oh, but to create!

I think the biggest rush of all is to see something that you create succeed. To put a rare brainstorm or light bulb flash into practice and to give it shape and to finally see that it works and well at that; nothing gets better than that. It is hardly surprising to see that parents are overjoyed when they see their kids doing well for themselves. After all, we are our parents' creation.

I was watching this episode a couple of days ago on Discovery channel. Its called smash labs. And yes it has to do with smashing up things, and no, you don't get paid for going at things with a baseball bat or a iron rod. (Notice how I say baseball instead of our desi cricket bat, but I despise cricket in any case, so ...). But the point here was to try and prevent destruction from happening. The challenge in the particular episode was to come up with a solution to help the occupants of a 3 tonne car somehow survive a crash from a 300 tonne moving train doing around 40-50 kmph during collision.

You think air bags and you would be right. Put one in front of the train to cushion the impact of the train on the car parked right in the centre of the track. Sounds trickier than you think. Here are a few problems with that:

1. What material to choose. It should take a lot of strain from the pressure of the impact and not rip apart and yet it should be flexible enough to absorb a large part of the impact. It should also have the ability to be compactly packed when not inflated. After considering rubber tyres, basketballs, buoys and white water raft materials, they went with the raft material.

2. How to inflate the air bag quick enough like say 3-5 seconds before impact, since thats how long the train driver has to trigger the mechanism. A tube pump wont do it. And using a highly compressed cylinder of gas wont cut it since the gas rapidly cools on expansion and freezes the raft material making it brittle. So the went for a system which simultaneously sucks in air from outside along with highly compressed gas from a cylinder to keep the gas from cooling off too fast.

3. Air has to be let out on impact to absorb the shock or the Gs. Air valves to release air didn't work. They were too slow and the bag just ripped apart at the seam. So they went for pressure caps which would blow off above a certain pressure much like the safety valve of the cooker. But getting them to blow off at the right pressure is the tricky part. You don't want it to blow off when the bag is getting inflated. That would defeat the entire purpose.

4. How to strap the bag to the train so that they would not be any loose ends. Any weakness at the seams could cause the bags to blow up prematurely during inflation itself and much before the collision.

They also came up with the novel idea of actually pushing the car off to the side with a fulcrum mechanism to minimize the blow instead of taking it head on. Their were several other finer details but even I am beginning to realize that this piece is becoming a bit tiresome. So I'll omit the rest.

In spite of all the preparation, there were a lot of unknowns. But this design managed to cut down from 8Gs to almost 4Gs the force of impact. This was a huge achievement. Towards the end, as the car got pushed off the track, the wheels got stuck and the car overturned, which is not good news for the inmates of the car. But they did absoerb half the forces of impact.

It was greatly inspiring to see this one hour presentation and made me realize that it is all the more vital to create. If we have a job that lets us create on a daly or even a weekly basis, what more can we ask for. Perhaps, thats why I prefer being an Architect any day over a Verification Engineer. :) However, not many chances to create on my side. Looks like that still needs me to pile up years of experience. Hmm...

Wayanad - May 23-24, 2008

Who would have thought that May would be the time to go for a trek. The peak of summer and I was expecting everything to be looking brown and dead or at least half dead. Kudos to Satya for landing up in Bangalore from Pune and insisting that we go on a trek while he was here for the weekend. After several attempts to book B. R. hills resort by Adarsh was a failure, we had no choice but to go to Wayanad. Two cars it was- a brand new Red Swift that Nikhil had recently purchased and Rohit's 'new' second hand Esteem- these were our rides to Wayanad.

I will not go into all the minute by minute details of the trip due to the lack of patience on my part and also because I am writing most of this sitting in my cube in office on a Monday morning when I am supposed to be working diligently. Therefore, only the highlights of the trips will be exposed to the limited readership of my blog.

We started off on Friday night, and inspite of our plans to start off at 6 PM, we only left Bangalore at 8:30 PM. Night halt in Mysore with the notable event being our dinner. We had idli's at a gaadiwallah outside the bus stand! We asked for four plates of idlis and he gave us four plates with four idlis each. My joke for the day was that if we had asked for ten plates, he would have given us ten plates with ten idlis on each plate. Dumb, I know, but that is the level of my jokes usuallly. Four idlis per plate plus masala vada plus tea!Total dinner cost for 10 guys came out to 135 rupees!

We stayed in a very dilapidated cheap section of Mysore, but the lodge rooms were dirt cheap and we only needed them for the night, so we can't really complain. Besides, we also had a lot of fun that night, but that part is not public domain knowledge. Contact me personally for details. ;)


This pic below is a view of the Muthanga wildlife reserve once we enter Kerala. This is actually Kerala's part of the Bandipur wildlife reserve. As you can see, the roads are a pleasure to drive on and the bamboo canopy that formed overhead was a treat for the eyes. Everything was actually lush green because the pre-monsoon showers had hit about two weeks back.


We ignored the signages which asked us not to stop on the way through the forest (supposedly because animal crossings could happen across the road). All of us spent time posing for individual and group pics in the forest. Rohit tried to prove why he was assistant director for Kuselan by attempting to show us his prowess with the camera. This pic here is a great group pic, probably the only one in the trip with Satya being notably missing since he was the photographer for this pic. Notice that the guys without the cool shades are the ones who are naturally cool and don't need any extra apparel to look 'cool'. ;)


I kept insisting that the forest office at Mepaddi would give us trouble. I told Satya they wouldn't let us climb Chembra citing one excuse or the other. Told him to call up the office from Bangalore itself to arrange for permission in advance. He didn't and I chided him for it. We walked into the forest office late morning on Saturday without giving any prior notice. Surprisingly, the officer didn't even try to stop us. We told him - "Sir, we want to climb Chembra today." He said " Sign in that register with your address and you can be on your way. Also add the registration number for your cars." That was it! I almost went red in the face. It was so simple this time! Last time they said forest fire problems and what not. Just wouldn't let us go up. Finally, we did go up and camp near the lake for the night last time, but that's another story.

This is one of the pics on the first stage of the climb. I had read on someone's blog that the climb to the peak was done in seven stages. In Sundi's words, Chembra is an ideal example of a pseudo peak. A 'pseudo peak' is one in which the actual peak is always hidden from your view. You always see some peakish thing and think thats the end, but when you get there, you realise its only a temporary maxima, and the peak lies behind and higher. So as I was saying, we were expecting seven stages of this with the lake at the second stage. I diligently kept count of the stages and kept egging my friends on. But after I had counted almost 9-10 stages and the peak was still out of reach, I gave up counting since it no longer made any sense. Nobody was believing me anymore.

A sneak peak through the fog at the peak from the heart shaped lake or at least what you think is the peak at this point. The real peak is in fact several stages away and probably not even visible from the lake.

Half an hour on the way, we reached a lake that was actually more of a puddle. And the guys were really pissed that this was the lake I was talking about. The guys had even brought along their swimming trunks expecting to jump into the lake. I was pretty sure that wasn't the lake since I knew that the lake never dried up throughout the year and the position of the lake was also different from what I remembered from the last time. But I wasn't sure enough to insist that this was the wrong lake. Ten-fifteen minutes later, we finally hit the real lake and I was jubilant. I pointed out the lake to Macy and declared - 'See, the lake doesn't dry up. I knew it wouldn't violate that rule. Its the law of the lake!!!' And Macy gave a smirk but I had turned out to be right!

A beautiful view of the heart shaped lake from above, half-way to the peak. The weather by the way was absolutely amazing. Can you believe this picture was actually taken around 2 PM in the afternoon!!! It also drizzled a couple of times during the trek and made the path slippery. Thankfully, not enough to make the water start flowing down the path. That would have really made things dangerous.


Some amazing pics again as the clouds closed in around us...

Thirty minutes more to the peak and Satya gave up. He actually would have made it. But the soles on both his shoes were almost missing and he wanted to save what was left of it for the climb back down. So we shed our bags where he stayed on and continued up. It was a huge relief to shed the extra weight. I have to say Satya's experience there alone would also have been equally worth dying for. Imagine being alone on the mountain with only silence around you. Freaky! Satya told us afterward that though we were far away, he could hear us all clearly talking like we were just ten metres away!

We finally reached the peak at exactly 3:30 PM. Two and half hours to the top just like I had promised to Satya and Macy! Macy and Atul were the first to make it. They finally reached the top and declared that there was nothing ahead to scale. We were on the peak finally! Only five of us made it to the peak - Macy, Adarsh, Atul, Mithun and me. We all gave out whoops of joy and I removed my sleeveless tee ( actually its just a vest) and flung it on a nearby rock.

The last time I came to Chembra with NITK guys, I didn't make it all the way to the top. The wind speeds were really bad and I was scared to death. Besides, we were also carrying heavy loads that time.

After that, I did some 360 degree videos of the peak accompanied by my critically acclaimed commentary. It was really silent up there and we were on top of Wayanad. We were on a high, 2200m to be exact! :) (Think i flicked that line from someone.)

Ten minutes after we reached the peak, the clouds closed in all around us and we were actually engulfed in the clouds. It was raining below but we were above the rain!

This was were we had our most dangerous encounter on the trip. Lightning and thunder ensued. Suddenly, Adarsh exclaimed that he felt something. Like something brushed past him. We didn't really understand what he meant or was getting at. Then a couple of minutes later, another lightning strike in the distance. And suddenly all of us felt it (except Macy); it was like some electric charge passing against us. Static discharge happening around us due to the lightning strike! Then Adarsh clicked a photo of my hair, and sure enough, it was all standing up. This continued two-three more times and Adarsh and me were getting really freaked out. We originally planned to stay on the peak till 4:30 at least. But I talked him out of it. Then we all decided to just sit silent for five minutes, close our eyes and enjoy the silence and the clean air. We were in the middle of that when suddenly it hit us again; the discharge, and it was huge this time! Literally like a small slap on the back. Three seconds later, thunder rumbled in the distance. We remembered our physics- light travels much faster then sound. All of us cried out in unison. Macy also felt it this time. We made a beeline for the path and started scrambling down as fast as we could go. It was only after we came below the cloud line did we heave a sigh of relief. I remarked that we should all go to a temple after we reached home and thank the Lord for getting us back down safely that day!

The climb down was uneventful except for this fearsome lad below. Spotted by Satya, a big dark green shiny scorpion, larger than the size of my palm. This picture shows you his fearsome claws and tail pointing upwards in a 'warrior pose' ready to strike. I have to say that the scorpion had actually scuttled to the side harmlessly. But then Adarsh threw a stone at it just to scare it away just in case. Instead of scuttling away, it broke into a defensive pose ready to strike. Even if I took one step forward, it countered by moving towards us. Finally, the five of us (Satya had already passed ahead) had to abandon the path and move through the grass to avoid the big venomous guy. Credits to a dear friend of mine for using some editing skills to remove the blur in the picture. Needless to say, I should have taken the photo in Macro mode to get better detail, but I wasn't really thinking clearly at that point of time.

We finally reached the watch tower at 5 PM where we joined the remaining four people who had not even made it to the lake because they were too tired. Lack of physical fitness and some vices to blame for that. After recounting our experiences to these guys, we made to car and back on our way to Kalpetta to get a hot bath, some much needed dinner and a comfy bed to sleep on after. We did stop on the way where i caught this heavenly picture of sunset. I could only imagine how good it would have looked from the top!!!

Next day was Soochipara waterfalls after getting up really late and a lazy breakfast. Nice falls with scope for bathing and getting some massage for the sore limbs. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here. Only complaint was that the falls was a little too accessible to the public, so there was a crowd at the water. We could have gone to Meenmutty which is a much better falls and secluded since its not that easily accessible, but of course no one was in the mood for a trek that day.

On our way back to Bangalore after that. We did stop once in Muthanga wildlife reserve since there was a rumour of a Bison spotting. And though we could see something in the distance in the forest, we couldn't say for sure if it was a Bison or just an ordinary ox.

At one point during the drive back, it did pour so heavily, that visibility was nearly down to zero with the rain actually moving sidewards.

Dinner at Shivalli Tiffin Rooms where I had the tried and tested Bisi Bele Bath and Masala Dosa to round off the memorable trip.

Thanks again to Satya for inspiring all the guys to make it to the trip. Here's to hoping we can do atleast one trip a month from now on! Keep up the enthusiasm guys!