one year of "Saarang"

Its been one year of "Saarang", and we will probably remember this everytime I see the indian tri colour being hoisted by our president..It was last year that we had our house warming ceremony and exactly after a month we had moved in into the new house..

Its a bit embarrasing that the nameplate of the house that we had got made just before the function last year has still not got its due and is like the " new kid on the block cricketer" who is in the team but never gets a chance to be in the playing 11 for a years time till some fortunate moment for him ...

Its been a great year in our new house, and we have been doing some or the other thing with it each month such as a the furniture, interiors, small collectibles and nails for the collectibles/paintings and some undone things ..I'am sure this will continue in this year too..as like any other new house that one builds ...

There is an interesting story of the huge boulders that you see in our house ..You cannot miss them ..just like the one that you see as you enter..We were desperately searching for such huge boulders but were disappointed either by the cost that the contractor was charging or by the wierdness of the idea. However, we got all these boulders by chance one day when my dad found a truckload of stones on bannerghatta road and after following and requesting the driver for one of the boulder, the driver eventually obliged to dump the whole load at our site..and for a cost that we would have just paid to move one of the stones 10 feets ! ....

One of the learnings in the house construction - Be Bold on your ideas, persue your ideas, persuade with the stakeholders and the help will be on its way ..

belgaum-sambra visit

Belgaum visit

This was a much awaited and much planned affair. This was also a momentous occasion to be amidst most of your school friends after a long long time. It was in 1992 that we passed out ( graduated ! ) from KV Sambra from the 12^th class. Since then, circumstances have changed, contexts in professional and personal lives have changed. Life moves on ; but never seemed like 14 years since we played volleyball in school ( with a English or a biology class going on J ). It just seemed like last year ..

We reached Belgaum by afternoon , 2 PM to be greeted by Rama and Akshay who were just checking in into the rooms. Sanman classic is an extension of the very popular Sanman hotel but is owned by somebody else. Its just unfortunate that our stay at classic sanman started with a fight with the manager/owner.. Its not my desire to pick up a fight but I cannot resist if someone wants to take me for a ride. The issue was on the checkout times, which the owner of the hotel was claiming to be at morning 8AM despite we checking in at around 2 PM. This was eventually resolved the next day. The fair part wins the war but not always !!! This time we were lucky ..

We had lunch at Sanman hotel, where I was unable to get the Puri-Bhaji that I wanted to taste. After the lunch, we went roaming in Bogar Ves just to recollect our memories. Akshay and Rama went to meet somebody else. These were memories for most of us including Vaiju, myself, Arti and Sangamesh. Vaiju also has some Belgaum memories when she was in second class. It was city exploration for Karthik and Niti ..Later, we drove through the cantonment area, Green hotel, KV Belgaum, Staff quarters where we had stayed earlier and then had the evening tea at Sangamesh’s house. The School and the quarters looked deserted because of the Christmas vacation. Later, we all gathered together at the hotel rooms. Ajit had already arrived by then. Rama seemed to drive the discussion towards fitness and diet and it just revolved around that. We had a late dinner and had the times had passed on into 2007 !!!

The next day seemed to be a very tight and unfortunately we left our hotel slightly late and our first visit was to Ajit’s house.. We then made a quick visit to Jyothi’s house which is near to Ajit’s house. Before that, we had a very sumptuous breakfast at Sanman and I got the Puri-Bhaji, which I had sought earlier.

We then drove down to Sambra, which I was awaiting the most ..My times in Sambra were the defining moments for me where I did my schooling from 4^th till 12^th class. I’am sure Sambra has a lot of influence on my life..

I wish to thank all my buddies with whom I studied, played and spent a lot of time together. Some of these were the ones who were with me in this new year ..Thanks Guys/Gals ..Thanks a lot for being( and continue to be ) such good friends. I also take this moment to thank my teachers in primary school and secondary school who shaped my aptitude, attitude and gave me sense of competitiveness in life.

Well, I went down the memory lane in the previous paragraph….Let me bring the context to the present ..We drove down to Sambra and myself/Ajay were on the bike while rest everyone were in Ajit’s Alto ..We were planning of our entry inside the campus because of the strict security, which we were all aware of….I still remember the time when we had to stay outside the gate for close to 1 hour at the time when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, because we were not carrying the ID card.. However, on reaching the guard room, I requested to be let in to see our old school and the guard obliged..

We spent close to half an hour in the school going to the different classes where we had studied, to the different places where we had spent some special moments, the stage where we used to have our daily assembly, the labs where we did some interesting/not so interesting experiments, the places where we had played cricket, volleyball, kho-kho, kabaddi, football and “Gallery”. Apparently, the school is in a very bad state because either it is going to be demolished or is going to be relocated. However, I’am just fortunate to have captured some moments there because I’am not sure if the same buildings will exist later. We later went walking to the house where I had stayed near the primary section and got to meet our neighbour ( Panicker ).. We managed to take some pictures ( which I was not supposed to because of the security restrictions ) ….We later reached Belgaum and had lunch at a new hotel, which has come up. There were hardly any staff because of the previous night celebrations. However, we managed to get something to have as lunch…

Later, we checked out of our hotel rooms and dumped our luggage in Ajits car and visited Shaila madam’s house where we had delicious snacks and a good time. She, later escorted us to the station from where myself, vaiju, arti, karthik, diya and adithya boarded Kittur chennama express back on our way to bangalore.. bidding bye bye to Ajit, Ajay, Rama and Ribhav..

Ribhav ...Aditya ..& Diya ...

Mumbai-Poona trip

We ended 2006 in style with a family cum pleasure vacation, which was much awaited as much as was delayed. It was also a result of the numerous complaints from my close relatives all of who are in the Mumbai-Poona belt for having neglected to make a visit to them.

The trip was planned quite in advance with the onward journey booked by flight ( Jet Airways ) and the return journey totally unplanned on purpose. We left for Mumbai on 23^rd December, Saturday at 12 Noon and reached Mumbai at 1:30 PM. It was the first time I was flying with my family and had to experience the uncertain moments of how Diya would behave in the flight. I had seen many babies and kids cry with either fear ( or pain or just anxiety ! ), and was slightly anxious if I would be the one at the receiving end this time. Diya was quite playful for most of the time, which actually is an issue in a plane because you hardly have any space to move around. It was a difficult exercise to manage during the lunch and Vaiju and myself barely managed to taste the menu.

The first day was spent in Bhandup and we had been to Hyper Mall, in the lines of Forum in bangalore but much better since there is lot of open space and open air. Also purchased( gifted by Vaiju ) the long pending Corduroy trouser. The next day began with north-south Jaunt to Gateway of India in the car ( Tata Indica ) we had hired next three days to travel in Mumbai, Mahad, Mahabaleshwar and Poona. This was unusual since we avoided the local trains for the commute in order to cover more locations, houses and families all in 2 days. The infrastructure development in this part of the company is almost a decade ahead of that in bangalore.

We saw gateway of India and then proceeded to visit the famous Mahalakshmi temple before driving all the way to Ambernath. We drew down straight to Vaiju’s maushi;s home for a extra sumptuous lunch. We utilized the opportunity for a small afternoon nap to energize ourselves for the rest of the day. Later in the afternoon, we visited Baby Tai, whom I had not seen in the last one decade. It was nice to meet her, Arpita and Seenu after a long long time. Apparently, Seenu was enquiring who Raja was J After spending a couple of hours in her place, we proceeded to Dombivali to Dhruva Dada’s place where everyone was waiting for us. We had a late dinner and a cake cut by Diya on the family reunion. Finally, we left Dombivali by car and arrived at Bhandup just before midnight ( It took almost twice the time that it would have taken by a local train ).

Next day, we again left at 9:30 in the Indica to Mahad, which is on the Mumbai – Goa highway. We reached Mahad by 12 Noon and had a lunch. After that, we left for Raigadh fort at 3 PM, which was obviously quite late. We were also joined by Pandits brothers family. Reaching there, we realized what it can be on holidays..We had to wait for three hours to get into the ropeway that would take us to the hilltop and the fort. Finally, we reached there when it was pitch dark J. We saw ( whatever we could ) in the torch light as well as the light from the mobile phones..Neverhthless, it was a good experience and a good learning to know about the Shivaji era. The guide whose services we had taken was quite handy.

This is the Mahabaleshwar landscape. Great picture....I was trying to compare this with the landscape at Grand Canyon and there are some similarities as well. Though Grand Canyon is surely much bigger and is more reddish compared to these western ghat mountain ranges.

We had been to the boathouse, which are typical of the hill stations. I have seen such boathouses in Kodiakanal, Ooty and now Mahabaleshwar. The experience has been equally good. This time it was particularly nice and pleasant.

Next day morning, after a heavy breakfast, we left for Mahabaleshwar, Panchgani with an ope n schedule of either staying back at Mahabaleshwar or going ahead to Poona. We reached Mahabaleshwar by Lunch time and the first thing we had was a sumptuous lunch( I had a Gujrati thali and Vaiju had Jhoonka Bhakar ). After that, we started moving around to sightsee Mahabaleshwar for its various points ..Arthur point, Echo Point were some of the points I remember but most of them were very good. However, a thing noticeable was the weather. We felt that Bangalore is probably more pleasant J It may be selfish statement, but that is what we felt at the time that we spent there..We also enjoyed the were delicious Bhutta.

By sunset, were at Tableland spot where we also a Tanga ride on the table land spot.. One of the points I remember is the Panadava feet spot, where there is a mark on the earth of a giant feet that is supposed to be of the Pandavas..Later we felt that it would be wiser to drive back to Poona instead of halting at Panchgani since it would have been just for the night even if we halted..

This is again one of the beautiful pictures that I managed to take.

There is a significant difference in the Nilgiri ranges compared to the western mountain ranges. The density, colour as well and type of the vegetation differs..

We reached Poona by 10:30 PM and went to Padmaja’s place and chatted for couple of hours before retiring to the bed, in order to be ready to take on Poona the next day, which would be 28^th Jan.

We managed to do some shopping in Pune including the most wanted "Paithani" saree by Vaiju and some nice cure saree for Diya. What amused me was we could do shopping near Lakshmi road , see Shaniwar Wada and then return home all in 3 Hrs..It would have easily taken half a day in Bangalore on a weekday.

Afternoon, it was Pune darshan all the way..courtesy Sunil..Sunil can probably vie for any top level post in the Pune Culture, Travel and Infrastructure department of the government. We almost covered completely the western part of Pune that included the IT campuses mushrooming in Pune, the defence area, some of the the traditional spots, the Rajneesh asram ( the landscape created out of an open drane was amazing within the ashram ), Smriti's school and most of the important roads as well as some bylanes :-). We could also get some sense of the Pune traffic in the evening on our way back. One thing that I'am certain is that, anybody else that I know, would have done as good a job of showing Pune as much as Sunil did..



Next day morning, we left early morning to the Sinhgadh fort, which is also one of the important forts of Shivaji. Shivaji had some 248 forts in all during his era..The drive in the morning was nice and we were there on the top by 10 AM.







We also saw the house of Lokmanya Tilak where Gandhiji met Tilak during the independence struggle.











Apart from that it photo sessions and the most interesting time was the breakfast of Jhoonka Bhakar and Onion Bhaji.

On the way back, we managed to visit the Paa's new shop and did the shopping of the exclusive Bhakar Vada..Also bought the most needed Travel bag..Later, we left for Chinchwad by Auto and visited Morab family, Savita's house and Mami. We spent some emotional moments with mami and then were with Morab's just before dinner. It would have been ideal to have spent some more time but our bookings were already done for Kolhapur by the Sahyadri at night..Anil and Abhay accompanied us to the Pimpri station and were on our way to Pune.

Kolhapur visit turned out to be a time for reenergising ourselves after the hurricane visits across all places. All three of us were down with cold and cough ..Diya had some fever by now..We managed to visit the famous Mahalakshmi temple in the afternoon and then had the most sought Misal on the way back in the evening. We requested to stay at home the next day in order to relax..Next day morning, we were on our way to Belgaum ...The details ..Watch the Next Blog post ..