Somlapura, Koppa

I'm currently sitting wondering how to write the best diwali experience I had. It was fun all through the way. Getting struck in the Bangalore's biggest traffic jam and being late by whooping one hour to catch the reserved bus. Catching the bus was an experience by itself. I had been to a village called Somlapura in Koppa taluk in chikamagalore (catching up with relatives). Pictures posted are captured by my cousin Goutham. Thanks to his steady hands and his interests in photography.

Somlapura is a village full of striking contrasts between old and new. Parts of it are suspended in time: The village is sparsely populated and is more of forest and less of village. To give you an idea of how dense the forests are, localities claim tigers are constantly spotted near the village ( Plz note tiger spotting is Herculean task this days).You feel transported to the old Ages, but then you’ll be yanked rapidly into the present when you notice that the roofs are peppered with antennas and satellite dishes.

Here at Western Ghats ever other plant has medicinal value. I admire the knowledge every villager has pertaining to medicinal herbs. U will find herbs right from curing snake bites to making sugar free coffee suitable for diabetes patients. And not to forget the plant (Sarva sambar) that tasted like chilies, pepper, and variety of spices all mixed together.

One minute you’ll be admiring the shades of green in a coffee and beetle nuts farm and then you’ll suddenly hear the crackly call of a peacock somewhere from a forest nearby.I saw the biggest spider I’ve seen in my lifetime (6 - 8 inches long). If you can enlarge and see the photo u will find a smaller spider sitting on top of the bigger spider.

What still fascinated me, however, were the cracker used in Diwali. Let’s call them Herbal crackers for a while. It was explosives wrapped inside dried leaves. The sound produced can surpass sounds of the best crackers available in market today. Watching crackers was fun though dangerous as trajectory for rockets was arbitrary and not defined.

The lesson I took away from this tropical forest adventuring was that humans are extraordinarily adaptable. I was no longer bothered (or even particularly amused) when I heard that there was a tree nearby when cut and inhaled induces unconsciousness. Other notable incidents were.

• Spotted peococks
• Visited Gnanapeth award winning poet Kuvempu’s house at Kupphalli
• Had pleasant walk on the banks of river tunga overlooking a bridge constructed by Sir M. Vishveswarya
• Visited a house which was the only house for the entire village of Kotikoppa

Speedtest

I did a random speed check of my internet connection at www.speedtest.net, it offers a simple one-click connection speed testing. My internet download speed is measuring approximatly 134kbps as opposed the BSNL's idicative speed 256kbps. As u can see upload band width sucks. Not really fast.....Sooo at wat speed are u browsing

Over the weekend

Last weekend I watched the much awaited movie Pirates of carribian, Dead mans chest. Captain Jack sparrow aka Jonny Depp was at his usual best. As expected it was fun to watch the movie. U can be assured of some very good special effects and will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Very funny movie and will make u wonder " How the heck is it possible for a director to think so much over very simple concept which of course includes a Hedge. Over the hedge is must watch for animation lovers.

Coorg, Bhramagiri, Irpu falls

I had been to Coorg for a two day (24.06.2006 to 25.06.2006) hike at Bramhagiri, a beautiful hill near Sirimangala. Unfortunately we were unable to trek as planned due to heavy rains. But staying in Coorg in rainy season is experience by itself. We were staying in a forest guest house at Sirimangala overlooking Bhramagiri. It was such a refreshing break from a hectic week. Later next day we visited Irpu falls. A visual retreat indeed and if you guys can remember Liril Soap Ads was shot here. We spent most of the time waiting for the rain to stop.

Firefox Myth

Until recently I was suggesting Firefox to every second person I met. But now am in a dilemma after I came across a comment from Mr. Anonymous few hours back with a link to http://www.firefoxmyths.com Hmmm must say, am bit confused on what to believe and what not to.

Dear anonymous Please leave a forwarding E Mail id so that I cld reply back to your comments. Has anyone got a theory for why so many visitors to blogs feel the urge to tell you all the ways in which you are wrong, dumb, suck etc, but don't feel enough conviction to have their name associated with their opinions? It seems strange to me that someone would want to give another the benefit of their wisdom but not take credit for it. I can understand someone posting anonymously if there is a chance their comments could get them into some sort of trouble, but otherwise...

Lifehacking

Came across this on net and is very interesting. It’s called life hacking. It’s all about tweaking your work pattern to do things efficiently spending less time. In turn u can gain plenty of personal time and if u r good at it U can have spare time to do things that u always wanted to. I’m trying this and hope I get more time for myself.

How would you like to hav a four day week with three day weekend. Say, you work from Mondays to Fridays, and then you could try to shift your schedule instead to working Mondays to Thursdays. Sounds interesting right.

It's interesting how a lot of websites, web apps and blogs focusing on productivity and GTD--getting things done--have grown in popularity of late. There are those focusing on time-tested ways of enhancing productivity. Then there are those that propose radically different ways of addressing productivity issues more effectively, usually called life hacking, among other things.

There are various ways one could go about with this, such as reducing the workdays, but not the actual number of hours worked. The problem wasn’t a time issue, it was a mental issue. I knew I had a whole week to finish my work, so I spread it out over five (or seven!) days. If I knew I only had four days to finish a whole week of work, it would’ve motivated me to get things done more efficiently.

Let’s see if it works, and any useful suggestions pertaining to this are most welcome. Mabee interested people can join me, together we cld work out a master plan to have a two day week with five weekends

I've been tagged

There seem to be a lot of "tag" games going around in the world of Blogland and sooner or later we all will hav to be its victim. Hmmm Praveen tagged me. How I wish my fellow bloggers to temporarily forget my name the moment they compose tagging posts. Anyway I’m researching a tag to end all tags. Wish me luck people.

Weirdest of my habits are

1. Eating Pickles more than Curds Rice. (Hope some exaggeration is allowed)
2. Calling random telephones number in directory and asking them the time
3. Telling Ghost stories to small kids ( Like to see the look on their faces)

Lemme stop here or I may say tooo much.

Make Firefox faster

This is an old one, but as more people started asking me for this hack I thought it would be better to have it on my blog. And yes there is IE version available on net, but hope u ppl hav switched to firefox. It's only useful for broadband users, so if you're still on dial-up you can just skip this one for now.

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries: network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading. 2. Alter the entries as follows: Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true" Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true" Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once. 3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

5000 Hits

I'm posting this entry between my exam preparation. This is a very special post of mine. My statcounter is indicating 5000 hits and its nice to know that it has reached that special landmark. From the day since I started blogging I've somehow been emotionally attached to it. I still remember signing up for blogger and searching thru various templates just to give that special look for my blog. Also here is a handy link to my blogging guidelines that I had posted long back. And I still remember spending lot of time on photoshop to design the time machine header in my blog. And it was nice to know and meet people whome I got to know thru blogging. Specially praveen (Technoshocker) who is a very good online friend of mine whome I'm yet to meet. And not to forget the calls I ocassionally receive just to discuss certain articles that I've posted. To celebrate 5000th visitor i was planning to redesign my entire template but I'm very much attached to my existing template. However I've made some minor modifications and fixed few bugs. All in all it is fun to blog. And thankyou visitors.

MEANWHILE JOGA BONITO (celebrating the soccer fever going on everywhere). Have fun and play more

Meaning "play [it] beautifully" in Portuguese -it's a fictional association created for a Nike ad campaign. Chekout this beautiful Joga_bonito video here..

The new Magic Number

49.5% wld no doubtly be a magic figure if Ministry of Human Resources has its way. i.e. Mr Arjun Singh's stand on raising reservation for backward class (BC) to unprecendented level.

What I feel is, instead of raising reservation levels they could waive off the course expenditure for a deserving BC candidate. Else one in every two students will be an undeserving one.

Following are some comical suggestions I came across the net If the 49.5% ruling goes by. Whats your suggestion

• 49.5% of the width of any and every road be reserved for BCs. No one else can traverse on them.
• 49.5% of all public toilets in India be reserved for BCs. They should be FREE (as in free beer) too.
• Out of every 100 times Arjun Singh's wife/daughter has sex, 49.5% of them should be with BC men.
• 49.5% of Arjun Singh's balls be castrated and donated to BCs.
• For every book which anyone buys, he should tear 49.5% pages and donate it to a BC guy.
• 49.5% of all land be donated to BCs.
• Everyone should donate 49.5% of his income to BC people.
• 49.5% of India's GDP be donated to BCs.
• 49.5% of oxygen in the atmosphere be reserved for BCs.
• 49.5% of all sea-beaches be reserved for BCs.

How we live

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.We have guided missiles and misguided men.

--- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

To understand the implications, I'ld suggest the following videos files (Humorous but disturbing) which will show case the chemistry between the Leader and the Led.

On the Streets of America (1)

On the Streets of America (2)

I'm being spammed

In case if there is a contest for a person getting maximum no of spam mails. I'ld be a clear winner among my friends. Leave comments if you feel u can beat my stats. I recive a whooping average of 36 spam per hour or even more some times . That is one spam every 90 seconds. Plz note I usually don't register for news letters or Ezines with my official id, yet I'm a victim of this spams.

Now I understnd the seriousness of a simple mistake I did few months back. I simply gaveaway my E mail id without enclosing it inside suitable Java script in my blog template.As I write this post, my inbox is indicating 11 new messages. Any way hav made necessary modification in my template. Hmmmm, Ppl here's a handy link to find out top 20 ways to Prevent spam. Till then happy spam fighting.

My Homepage

Finally my redesigned home page is up and running. I've tried to keep the site as simple as possible with blue as my basic theme colour. Sooo ppl visit www.chandanv.info and leave comments. Also ur feedback is very important to me. Do revert with your reviews and suggestions.

Bangalore in W War 1

Few hours back I was playing an FPS, MOHAA ( Ok ok I know its a very old game, I need to update myself). But an interesting war game. In one particular level called OMAHA BEACH My captain commands me to bring a BANGALORE. Yes a Bangalore. I thought I over heard it. But I replayed the particular scene and my captain had clearly asked for a Bangalore. Later in the game a Bangalore was a torpedo used to clear barbed wire in the beach.

Hmmmm, I was surprised to know that a torpedo was called Bangalore. Later I researched for Bangalore torpedo and the details are here. The Bangalore was first devised by Captain McClintock, of the British Army Bengal, Bombay and Madras Sappers and Miners at Bangalore. Intresting trivia and good to know that Bangalore was internationally known since world war 1 period. Now for its software companies.

Bangalore since British raj has an interesting history around it including an equally interesting evolution of its existing name. But from Nov 1, 2006 onwards Bangalore will be renamed Bengaluru. I prefer Bangalore as it sounds very much Sci Fi and am used to it. I strongly feel , changing the name does not solve the existing problems the city has. I feel Govt has to think about more constructive ideas which addresses our criticle issues such as infrastructure.

Well ppl what do u like. Bangalore or Bengaluru.

Spiderman 3

"I saw Spiderman few days back, awesome movie. But I kept thinking how lucky Peter Parker was to have that web shooters form in his forearm instead of his ass like every other spider on the planet."

Any way, what I feel is, it is very difficult to realize a cartoon character as a movie. Movies such as Phantom and Superman that were released many years back were unable to do justice to their characters. Spiderman was an exception, fluidity in spider mans movement and his behavior is characterized very well.

As of now I'm waiting for Spider Man 3 to be released. I was idly surfing for spider man 3 pics /trailers and came across the above posted pic. One interesting thing to note is Spider man’s sporting a black costume. And also rumors confirm that Venom would be the villain. Sooooo ppl and all you Marvel comic fans, you could expect some good action stuff

All in all superhero movies are good stress buster and usually suited for a lazy weekend.

Sakleshpura trek (Green Route)

Ahhh, back to good old days of blogging. Finally I’m sitting in my favorite place in front of my system E-jotting down my experiences. Soooo first things first. Lemme start with Sakleshpura railway trek also popularly termed Green route trek.

The trek to Yedakumeri (also Edakumeri) has been one of the best treks that I have ever done. It had an element of surprise, slippery bridges, and really eerie tunnels full of Bats, Green forests, waterfalls, rivers and not to forget the best of streams. Wow what an experience.

Since there's already enough info on this trek on the web, my purpose of this page is not so much of a travelogue, but to outline the fun we had during this trek. Here it goes in order of occurrence

Jan 20th 2006 (Day before trek)

Most of the planning and preparation was started on the day before the trek. We were a group of six. Vishwas, Sunil, Umashankar, Harish, Naveen and Myself. When it comes to serious trekking its always better to go in small groups as it requires less co-ordination and more fun. Everybody assembled at Majestic bus stand and got ourselves comfortable in the bus.

All the passengers couldn’t sleep all night as shankr was there with us. His rib tikling comedy was very hilarious that whole of the bus was laughing rolling on the floor, to be more precise on there respective seats. Morning at 04:30 we reached Gundiya, (We had to bribe the bus conductor to stop there) the spot from where we were going to start our trek. Gundiya is some 30 Kms from Sakleshpura towards Mangalore.

Jan 21st 2006 (The day itself)

Tracking in dark

Well it was very cold outside the bus. It took some time for us to get ourselves comfortable. It was very dark and we could see moon on the horizon. And most important of all I saw the best starlit sky I had ever seen. We could make out the outline of mountain ranges backed with a beautiful dark sky. It was indeed a visual delight for city dwellers like us. First 2 km or so was all plain. And then comes the first bridge. As we began to cross it, we realized the challenges that lie ahead! But until much later, we wouldn't know that it'd get only tougher and tougher from there on! As we came to bridge number two, there was a torrential river flowing down under. We climbed down freshened up in the chilling river water and started our journey again. Sun was rising across the horizon and we met few villagers there. We were informed the train service on track would start from the very next day. We were lucky.

Then we continued further, and the bridges became scarier and scarier - the longer the scarier. More than anything the morning dew had made the planks very slippery; the slippery planks were scaring shit out of us. After setting one foot on every next plank, we were not sure if we would make it without slipping! And it was becoming a problem.

In tunnel No 1, we saw a door on the right side and coming outside that door. We saw a torrential river flowing in the gorge next to the tunnel.

Interesting Trivia: Tunnel 1 and 2 are attached and the door on the right is exactly at the middle of those two tunnels. My observation

Then came the most beautiful, scariest, tallest and longest of all bridges. The bridge No 20. There was a torrential river flowing down in the gorge. And as if that was not enough, iron strip between the rails was missing at some of the most crucial points. A wrong step would directly take u to the bottom of the gorge. To make the matter worse there was the deafening sound of the river to shake away the crucial confidence that might have left in you. Hmmm finally some how we managed to cross the bridge.

Now comes the best part, Somehow Harish managed to find a way to the river below through the thick jungle. We had a refreshing bath and a swim in the beautiful stream I had ever seen with the old and the tallest bridge amidst thick forest adding to the visual delight.

Yedakumeri Station

Finally we reach Yedakumeri at around 6 in the evening and we planned to sleep in a small room beside platform (There was no door, roof and was filled with mud and cement). We were so tired that Umashankar cleaned the room and started to sleep. After sometime when he woke he was freaked out to see a stray dog comfortable sleeping next to him. Later we found that there was another room uphill with slightly better condition. Well there was a part time construction worker Srinivas who helped us clean the room. Finally we decided to sleep there. We cooked our food in the open space and was fun to do so. We slept in the roof less room watching starlit sky and mountains. We could feel rats moving on us during the nights, we did not mind. But later Umashankar told us that snakes might come to eat the rats. This was something we had not expected and covered our whole body with our bed sheets and went to sleep.

Jan 22ndt 2006 (The Next Day)

I and Harish woke up very early to take a morning stroll. We came across a beautiful water falls few meters from Yedakumeri station. I suggest it would be a very good place to have nice mineral water bath. Also we had to address the nature call. We had to give back nature what we took from it. Hence we started searching for a really secluded spot to finish of the unfinished business. The worst thing about crapping in woods is the insects, it seems that this insect does not have a very good sense of smell and would never let you do your work peacefully.

We came across a derailed railway engine few meters ahead from Yedakumeri. They had sent the engine to check the quality of tracks. Later we packed our trekking gear and started our journey towards the main road. We came across an elephant nest and few rivers which we had to cross. We took nearly 1 hour to cross the river.

Later we went to Subramanya temple in Kukke and headed towards Bangalore.

Note: There is a hotel called Bhatt’s Hotel in Kukke. They book tickets on behalf of KSRTC. Thou KSRTC office is there at the shrine the officials force us to book the tickets at Bhatt’s Hotel at a higher price tag. The Hotel owner is fraud and does this illegally (KSRTC Officials involved). I suggest people going to Kukke book there return tickets in Bangalore itself.

All in all it was one good adventure. Our next trek would be to Kumara Parvatha. Any one interested.

Check this space out

Been there, Done That

Well what a weekend. One among my best of best experience. Hmmm very difficult to pen it down,yet am in a process of writing it. Soooo ppl lemme atleast tell you what I did or rather tried for the first time in past three days.

• Trekked in jungle in the darkness of night

• Walked/trekked 25 KM in one single day

• Slept gazing stars and mountains

• Spotted Snakes in wild

• Bathing in rivers & streams very far from civilization

• Cooked my own food in jungle using wood as fuel.

• Taking lift in lorries on highway

• Drank Goli Soda

• River Crossing

And what not. Very soon I'll update my travelouge with lots and lots of photos

Madhugiri

Well after a very long break, I had to motivate myself to write this bloglet. This was mainly because; my system crashed at least a minimum of 8 times in one single week which resulted in me developing a complex Phobia towards computers. Thanks to my innovative methods of installing Linux. It’s tough to write a bloglet, ok. I mean it’s not like you open the browser go to the post page and start typing away. It requires a setting, a particular mood, some soft music if you will, and a lot of inspiration.

Well back to the task in hand. I’m writing this because I had been to a Place called madhugiri near Tumkur. It was a monolith rock which I climbed successfully last weekend i.e. on 18th of Dec, 2005. Later I learnt that I had scaled Asia’s biggest monolith, a whooping 3930 Feet as measured from the foot of hill. More info on the monolith and its history is here.

It wasn’t the best trek of my life. But it was pretty cool. For at least a day after coming back I found myself getting lost every once in a while in some different universe, slightly unlike this one we currently reside in.

Almost all the time that I was on the rock climbing, everything was like a full length movie running in my head. So why don’t I write this the way I saw it for those 16 Hrs. And just like all movies have characters, we’ll begin with the cast and crew.

So here goes in order of appearance:

1.Om Kumar alias GBK (George Bush Kumar) who picked me up from my place and dropped me back. A networking expert who strongly believes that cell phone is an extended part of his Ears or rather his body itself. I seldom see him without his cell phone.

2.Ashvin Bharadwaj alias Sha Bharadwaj the rock himself. He was our guide, navigator, driver and the planner of this entire expedition. He could easily relate to a WRC driver profile. U should have seen him overtaking Election Party vehicles in a bumpy track with his Maruthi Van. I am sure there’s a lot more to this man than the 3.5 sentences I wrote.

3.Prashanth he is one person who over utilized his vital organ meant for communication. Mr. On the move who was first to ascent and descent from the mountain. Either you would see him talking or climbing.

4.Praveen alias Chicki Silent. Doesn’t talk much. That’s mostly what I remember of him. ok he does speak, but only when spoken to. Otherwise, a man involved in his own world. He was very much beauty conscious who often used to apply sun screen lotion to prevent sunburns. Way to go Chicki, we are chanting in chorus “ KADLEKAYI BELASI, CHIKKI ULISI “

We started our journey as planned minus half an hour or so. I particularly enjoyed the journey as I met new people and made new friends. Thou the journey was tiresome it was worth every effort as the rock climbing was awesome. Here goes our journey details as sorted out by Ashvin.

Dec 18:

04:40 AM: The alarm starts blaring (Groan) I drag myself out & go down for a cup of coffee. 05:25 AM: Omkumar & Chandan drop in & thankfully I am ready 05:50 AM: Final checking of the packing & running through of the plan 06:20 AM: We start off from home! 06:45 AM: We arrive at Nammoora Hotel to pack lunch.& gravy for break fast. 06:55 AM: I ask Praveen to come to ISKCON rather than Prashant's house (more modifications to the plan) 07:00 AM: We pick up Prashant from Fourth Block 07:30 AM: We pick up Praveen from ISKCON. 08:50 AM: We stop to shoot pictures of the beautiful Toll Gate on Tumkur Road 09:15 AM: We stop to shoot pictures near the bridge off Tumkur road on the service road 09:30 AM: We stop for breakfast a few KMs outside Nelamangala 10:30 AM: More pictures near the 803 KM Pune Milestone 11:00 AM: We take a right deviation on Tumkur road & start on the poor state highway leading to Devarayanadurga, Goravanahalli & Madhugiri 11:20 AM: More pictures on the highway (don’t we get tired??) ;-) 11:40 AM: Finally we arrive at the base camp of Madhugiri!!! 11:45 AM: After picking up what is absolutely essential for the trek up, we shoot more pictures & start the trek

Once again I found myself wondering what makes me do these trek things. I mean you if you’ve seen me in person, you’ll know that God didn’t have treks in mind when he made me. It was more like television, beds and movies and a generally well fed existence he was thinking about while putting things together. But then once in a while God likes to test the limits of things he makes. So off I went to the trek.

The best part of climbing was it was multi stage climb with a ruined fort around the premises. The most thrilling part of the climb is a steep section just below the top where small ledges have been carved to serve as foot holds. As a matter of fact Praveen slipped here and was dangling trying to get his foot hold. We had to go back to rescue him. We were surprised by the vastness of the Madhugiri. Though the hill appeared scalable the moment you climbed what you thought was peak revealed the hidden part of hill. We climbed across ruins of forts and old temples. We came across what we thought was a place meant to store ammunition and weapons.

Finally after four hours of exhilarating climb we reached the peak. The View was absolutely stunning. We also explored ruined fort on the top. A local boy was explaining about the possibilities of spotting Bear but unfortunately we did not spot any. Once on the mountains themselves, with nothing but mountains all around you, you would for a moment feel all your strained muscles relaxed and you feel you are on top of the world.

Hmmm now the sad part, all good things have to come to an end, after taking rest for some time we started our descent. It took around an hour and an half to climb down. We had our lunch in the evening and headed back towards Bangalore.

Getting there:

Drive on NH 4 till Dobbspet. Then take the road on the right to Koratagere and proceed further for 18 km. Several buses ply from the city. Food and Water: Available in Madhugiri town. To be carried to the hill top. Accommodation: A few moderate hotels in the town. Suggestion: Take a guide, if necessary. Make sure to leave the surroundings clean.