The culprit

I have been out of blog-action for a month now. The reasons are very existential sort actually: My body decided to crash, And then it was usual "Eat-Take Medicine-Puke-->Try to sleep-->crash again-->repeat" cycle which took fair amount of my time.

Now, coming back to the previous post's discussion, what really caused my vehicle to skid. As assumed it was not the sand that really caused the thing. Upon closer analysis it was the road markings that triggered the unexpected fall. Have you ever tried to ride over the markings with a two wheeler, then you must have noticed a substantial drop in the road grip and upon braking the vehicle would not stop immediately. Phew! I wonder what is the type of paint that is being used to mark roads.

Once in a while

The weather was just superb. I always enjoy bright sunny weather just after it has rained and was on my way to office. It was just about fine, but the sand was just about dry sufficient to make the turning slippery. I rammed my brakes a bit too fast and found myself kissing the road in a matter of nanoseconds. But I showed some amazing skills in getting up back to make sure that no one had noticed. This was number _ _ _ (counting) in the series of minor accidents that I have had in last few decades (road accidents, that is. My personal life itself is an accident, otherwise). Last accident I remember was at Kanakapura main road where I had found myself lying on the road, looking into eyes of the dog which had just hit Amogh’s bike (Well that was Amogh’s mistake). Apart from honing my driving skills, these accidents have also lent support to my arguments of why I should not have a girlfriend. My flashy new bike sustained a few scratches.

Kumara Parvatha

There was certain something missing from past two years as I was unable to make some time off to go out on a long trek. Occasionally I would visit few hills nearby but that never had the zing that Western Ghats used to offer. Last weekend I had been to a place popularly known as Kumara Parvatha. I usually talk about how intense I find Bangalore and how everything in Bangalore is noisy and fast-paced and high-energy, and when I come back home at the end of the day, I feel drained. And it's nice to escape to the relative calm of trekking for a while.

We begin to notice the first time we step into the bus that it was a bad idea to plan a trek in short notice as we ended up with seats at the rear end of the bus. I don't know about other places but this journey was a rollercoaster ride and in all probability we were suspended in mid air most of the time which officially classifies our group to people who trekked Kumara Parvatha right from Bangalore. I was impressed by the casual adroitness with which our courageous bus driver would navigate the maddening maze of pot holes and non existent roads.

Kukke is an extraordinary place in terms of Geographic location, Right from a temple located in the foothills of Kumaraparvatha to the very beautiful river Kumaradhara flowing through the city. It also acts as a base camp for many trek routes to Bisle Ghat, Yedukumeri and KP. I couldn't help but marvel at the mist covered place as soon as I got down from the bus.

There is an unwritten rule for trekkers, if you do not bathe once in three days you are foolish. If you feel like taking bathe every day, you are crazy. I'm not sure if it's worse to be foolish or crazy, but I guess I fall into the first category. We couldn't help but to understand the usefulness of Deodorant as we did not bathe for 48 Hrs. I often found myself complaining about the amount of trash found on the trek path. I wish people to be more educated towards waste disposal. The good thing was, higher we climbed lesser were the waste.

No matter which trek route you select, there is always a nice surprise round the corner. In our case we had never anticipated the vastness of the mountain so were we lacking in preparation which took its toll and forced us to take rest every few minutes. I was rather amused at the speed at which our Glucose powder was depleting. We were relived when we reached Bhatara Maane which is an isolated house on the way to KP which serves as a pit stop to have lunch.

Water streams are rare especially during winter and summer, and where they do exist we need to fill our water bottles. We came across them near two places one near a ruined dolmen (Mantapa) and the second almost near the peak. So I suppose, I could not stop washing my face in the ice cold water in the scorching heat that constantly pushed my sweat buds to perform at its fullest. But there's something about distance and height of KP (2nd tallest mountain in south India) that can wear you out. In fact 2 people from our group were so tired that they ended up losing their way and had to spend the night inside a forest, creepy isn't it. But I was amazed at the speed at which localities used to climb without any difficulty.

So yeah, finally we were almost near the peak and we got to see the most breath taking sunset in all its glory. One moment you would see the bluish sky and suddenly you would be surprised to see your friends faces turning orange and then red. We then started embarking on what is sure to be a risky trek as it was turning darker. So was the trek rather gloomy at the end as we had left behind two of our friends whom we thought were slowly trekking towards the peak.

You say hi to a random trekker and he graciously introduces himself. It's easy to make friends on a trek especially when you are enquiring about your missing mates; they were sympathetic and very helpful. I find it compelling, most of them are from many different walks of life, and are interacting as if they knew us from the day we were born. It was dark and we stopped to cook dinner near a stream. From a distance you could see light from fire spread across the stream and occasional laughter that would shatter the silence of forest. Finally after a small ascend we reached the peak. Pitching the tent itself was a Herculean task. On a peak like Kumara Parvatha it require a bit of courage to sleep as I constantly kept wondering when our tents would fly away. After sunrise we finally managed to reunite with the lost friends and headed back. Taken together you would feel like doing this trek again and again.

HMT's

Who can forget the importance of a towel after reading Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy. A true galactic traveler has to carry a towel which is very important for his survival. A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have... You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta…wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat…wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes. Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

As you can see, people of Karanataka especially in Mandya belt are true inter galactic travelers. They invariably carry their towel over their shoulders. Recently I had been to a nearby village and was curious to see so many intergalactic travelers around. They are fondly referred to as Hegal mele towel alias HMT's (Babel fish translation : Towel on shoulders). This HMT's might be something very similar to the mice in disguise who were actually using humans as laboratory creatures. Who knows ? ;)

Being perfectionist is sin

I feel my best character is my worst enemy. I somehow do not have the ability to tolerate imperfections. As a result I do not study if I feel that I'm unable to complete 100% of the syllabus,Replace my wrist watch glass if there is minor scratch and so on. Thou I'm not perfect, my pursuit to perfection has really driven me crazy. At the end of the day nothing gets done. Sometimes I'm stressed to a point wherein I can barely function. Hence from today onwards I've decided to tolerate 10 - 15% of imperfection in things that I come across. This reminds me of deliberate mistakes that were allowed to be purposefully made on temple carvings, worrying to get 100% of the things right is not worth the effort.

Phantom calls

I had heard about them but had never experienced it until recently.Phantom calls are so frequent that I have to touch my pockets to confirm or deny the ringing. Eventually I end up digging for my cellphone that isn't ringing. It's gotten to the point where I won't even have my cell phone with me but I feel the vibrations. As I understand this is mainly because, we will be more alert to sensations that represent a cellphone vibration and it leads you to over-incorporate non-vibratory sensations and attribute them to the idea that you're receiving a phone call. Hence my phantom calls are more frequent when I'm riding. This thing is very annoying, I'm planning to switch off the vibrating mode and will try to relay on the ring tone alone. In turn I'll be saving on battery life as well. On the second thought I may end up draining battery as I've to solely rely on my listening ability which is almost impossible in Bangalore. Hence the caller keeps trying until I lift my mobile.

Any way, in case if I don't answer your call you know I'll be busy experimenting. But don't worry I'll get back to you sooner or later.

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

I would rather change the title to "A week with Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)". Downloaded a copy recently and must say it was primarily meant to replace my Opensuse 10.2. After installation I'm strongly thinking about formatting my Windows partition to make some space for linux & have a single operating system. Usually linux installation was a nightmare to novice like me, but things have changed and Ubuntu 7.10 was easiest among the lot. Following are the list of things that I liked the most.

1. Easy Installation
2. Add and remove programs application
3. Easy configuration of network
4. Easy to install proprietary codecs
5. Pidgin internet messenger
6. Compiz fusion (Neither vista nor leopard can match it)
7. Most important of all, its free

The list goes on and on. Till now, I do not have any excuse to at least log into windows for a while either to burn a DVD or watch a divx movie that I used to do with Opensuse frequently

What really prompted me to post this article was the ubuntu ideology - "A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Such a nice philosophy, yet so difficult to follow.

A small observation

There are so many clues that blogs can give about their owners happiness quotient. One such effective detection methods is described here as an example. By experience I feel, a person who frequently blogs is happy and content with his life and is doing new things every day and has lots of time to spare usually students fall into this category. If the frequency reduces to one blog post per week that means he might either be travelling or he is enjoying his work and his profession. If he blogs rarely, he is stuck with a high paying MNC job which he dislikes. He will be the most unhappiest person on this planet. And yes, if a person gets an out of the country on-site assignment he promptly stops blogging and plaster his Orkut album with his travel pics. This is small observation and would love inputs based on your experiences.

Feeling relaxed

Dressing up properly makes a huge difference on how your day goes by. The type of work that I do requires me to wear formals most of the time (not that I follow that strictly). I wonder, have business executives ever considered that perhaps if people were told they could dress comfortably and more casually, rather than the tight, stifling white shirt, slacks, and jacket, productivity in the office might actually, I don't know, INCREASE? I'd certainly feel a lot cooler and more relaxed if I could do that.

However despite all this constraints today I'm wearing a short sleeved cotton shirt which is not tucked and my favorite 4 year old Levies jeans torn in all wrong places. The attire is so comfortable that I feel like I'm on an holiday and day was very productive. It is almost 4 in the evening and I'm not tired at all.

While you are at it, here is a neat illustration to dress up the Mac way. Simple yet geeky, casual and relaxed. Apple surely knows how to make things distinctive and unique, may it be with gadgets or an Ad or the way you dress. And ah yes if you are planning to gift me with any of those, my birthday is right down the corner in January. And I do accept gifts in advance. I wonder how to dress up the Linux way.

A week in pondicherry

Last weekend marked my most memorable visit to pondicherry. If you are expecting a post about my Rendezvous with French woman, you would be disappointed. Its about a spicy night with bed bugs. Yup as I had not booked bus tickets in advance I had to settle for ride in Semi Deluxe bus of Pondicherry transport corporation. My hands are swollen with bites. I had assumed bed bugs are rare and are in verge of extinction. But they are very much alive and were crawling all over the seats. If I post an image of my swollen hand, it'll will gross you out and can be used as a good prop for an horror movie. So please think twice before you alight a Pondicherry Govt Bus. Well while coming back I had booked tickets in KSRTC Volvo and must say KSRTC rocks.

Apart from my routine official work I used to take an evening stroll at the beach along Gorbert avenue and while coming back to my room I used to take different route across French colony and was enjoying the place while walking back. The French colony is in contrast with rest of pondicherry, very neat with nice buildings along the roads. The most striking part was the simplicity in architecture yet very attractive. As I say often, simple things in life are very beautiful.

And did I say, I can speak French fairly well but that doesn't help me at all because the only thing I can say in it is, "Qu'a fait l'u dit?" (What did you say?) which just makes the other person repeat whatever he/she had said before. And yes can someone help me out with " Can I ask you out on a date this weekend ". Now if you're talking about French, that is a funny language. From what I came to know, it is common knowledge that the French attach a lot of importance to matters of sex and this is best reflected in the fact that in their language, every object has a gender. I wanted to find out how they had gone about the gender allocation. Then I assume my computer is female as it takes in things(Information) and my cell phone charger to be male for obvious reasons that need not be explained. While you think about it, bye and have a nice day.

Turahalli

At first, I didn't want to write this. But unfortunately for you, I changed my mind and now, here you are, stuck with poor old me. Ok, let's get started, shall we? Perhaps you are familiar with the phrase, liking a place and enjoying a place. Liking a place is natural thing that happens when we visit a place which is relatively good to our experiences. But enjoying a place is something which is rarely experienced by lucky few.

Thou the concept enjoyment is relative, here is my idea about enjoying a place. This does not mean that the place has to be really good with the best sylvan setting you can imagine of.

You act like a kid who has got his first bicycle. Your friends don't mind and they join you. You feel like climbing a tree and your friends join you. You want to laugh loudly and you literally roll on the floor laughing. You feel like jumping, your friends throw you in the air and catch you. U do not mind a friendly quarrel jumping on each other, not caring about people around you. U pose for the camera with the weirdest possible face you can think of and enjoy every bit of it All in all you are yourself enjoying every bit of what you are. No false traits to impress others. Well this is how it was when I visited Turahalli few weeks back. Turahalli is an isolated hillock area located south of Bangalore, off Kanakapura road. This place is a unique assemblage of rocks and dry deciduous forest with lot of eucalyptus trees and other wild shrubs and trees. Also there is a nice little forest attached to it and is an ideal weekend gateway

Lemme brief some important facts about Turahalli.

1.It is a very nice place for birding in Bangalore (8KM from Banashankari temple). Great Horned Owl is frequently spotted in this area. It also serves an ideal place for star gazers if they plan to spend the night. 2.Initially u need to climb a small hill and descend to the forest and again climb a hill to reach one more temple. There are altogether two temples. Climb is very easy and any one can climb it. 3. There are various boulders spread across the hill and a very nice place to try basics of rock climbing 4. The forest amidst is an ideal place to pitch a tent and spend a night there. 5. There is nice kiln beside turahalli and upon request you can earn a nice little trip around the kiln. A very good place to try profile photography and at the same time a interesting tour to most of us as Bangloreans rarely get to see bricks being baked.

Here is a neat little map to get to turahalli. Alternately the best thing is to reach Utarahalli bus stop and ask direction from localities. As there is plenty of information about the place I’ve not included any description about it here. I’ve left the details for you to go out and explore the hills and forest. Go with an open mind and have fun.

Co-incidence

Co-incidence often happens. People may call it strange phenomena or conspiracy theory, but when they happen to you it is still pretty mind-boggling. Today a friend of mine called me up from France and told me about a little country called Andorra that he had visited yesterday. He told me, that the country was a tax heaven, i.e. U don't have to pay any taxes on any items purchased there. After that I switch on my computer and open Google reader and bingo, there is an unread article about Andorra posted by someone else. Strange, very strange.

Do you have similar strange co-incidences to share. Than lets start a tagging game after it.

1. Each player starts with 2 random co-incidences they have come across.

2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 2 random co-incidences, and post these rules.

3. At the end of your post you need to tag your friends. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And yes, my second random co-incidence is, I and my sister share the same birthday. She is 3 years younger to me.

How to stop littering

Is there any innovative method other than this? I wonder when people will learn. Wish BCC wont get an idea from this ;) Found this message on a telephone junction box in Jayanagar 8th Block.

Personal peace time

'm on my way to mysore. Posting through gprs. Once in a while its good to travel alone for short distances. You get personal peace time. Its drizzling out. And plenty of time at hand.

How Complex are you ?

Recently came across few people who had severe specialness complex. No doubt, they are hard working and doing good but does that that make them so special to consider themselves higher mortals. But their own specialness will blunt their conventional intelligence when it comes to many types of decisions. They do not enjoy simple things in life as it is not their cup of tea and it does not add any credentials to their specialness. They fail to watch a movie as its a huge hit because every other person who is not so special are watching it. As a result they tend to watch documentaries which they themselves don't like. Lets assume that a group X feels that they are extra special and has to troubleshoot a problem, their approach will be "How should group X solve it ?" as opposed to " Whats the best solution?". Finally they will become who are popularly known as self centered egoist ass holes. Is this specialness complex constrained to humans, or do animals tend to have similar type of complex. Is this a natural behavior according to Darwinians theory evolution. Please enlighten me.

Kalavarahalli Betta, Skandagiri

Ever since I started receiving forwards about a hill 70km from Bangalore, I knew I had to go there. The mail had this amazing snaps. It was picturesque with cushion of clouds all over the hill. And yes I had been to skandagiri popularly known as kalvarhalli betta. Its near Nandi hills and a popular weekend gateway for many people across Bangalore. If you are expecting a view with clouds, I suggest you to visit Skandagiri in January.

The trek uphill is easy and is meant to be done during nights. The starting point is from a path behind an Ashram " papagni Mutt " . It wont be difficult to find the path as localities can help you locate the trek route. However my trek was not done during the night and to compensate the night trek experience we did not take the usual route. The route we took was more steep and we had to make our way to reach the peak. For adventurous lot I suggest you to look for a Peepal tree (Ficus religiosa) "Arali katte" towards left side of the road while coming from nandhi hills to papagni Mutt. That will be your checkpoint zero and park your bikes there. Then you need to find the way uphill. Do not take this path if you are planning trek at night.

Kalvarahalli betta is hilly with shrubs like trees across the hill. We had plans to have lunch on the peak and had packed " Boil & Eat" MTR rice dishes. The journey uphill was tiring. As we had plans to cook atop I suggested every one to collect dried twigs on the way. Later we had to throw our wood stock as we assumed there would be plenty of them on the hill. And yes we were right, there was plenty of it. We were stopping occasionally to catch our breath and enjoy the views. Gentle breeze and the sound of wind gushing across was a delight to listen.

Finally we were on top of the hill. It was windy and cooking was way to difficult. Somehow we managed to build a steady fire and off we went to boil the water. Finally we had our lunch. Temple atop is in ruins and smelly. There is also a rain water pond nearby. Very tricky to find as its hidden out of view. I dunno whether its potable, but there were fishes and i assume it's not that bad either.

It was about time and we had to return. The return journey was easy as we took the easy down hill route. We were silent while coming back and were recapitulating the the fun we had on the hilltop. Also met a lone trekker separated from his group, he was relived to see us as he had lost his way and was searching for the way back. All in all it was a good experience

Route:Bangalore - Hebbal Flyover - Devanahalli - Chikkaballapur - Skandagiri. Take a left turn inside the city, follow the narrow road to reach Papagni Matt which is at the foot of Skandagiri.