SHANDE

I had created shande.in domain 3-4 months back and had a plan of shifting this blog there. But later I found out that shifting blog is not so easy. Therefore I continued blogging here itself and didn't announced the creation of my own domain.

Last week in my office, IT people blocked blogspot domain also. This made me too give another try blogging at my own domain. I created a test blog, but discovered that template customization feature of blogger is not available for blogs hosted in own domain. Finally I ended up creating a new blog by name My Feeds. In this I will be posting references to blogs and links which I find interesting for that particular day.

Please have a look at shande.in where you can find my hane-bharas.
- orkut profile.
- personal blog.
- photo blog.
- my feeds.

For the time being, this blog will continue as my personal and travel blog.

Today afternoon I saw ‘Five Point Someone’, a play based on Chetan Bhagat’s bestseller. It was staged by Chennai based theatre group Evam at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall. The play was adapted and directed by Nikhila Kesavan.

When I was a going thru www.newindpress.com yesterday, ‘Five point someone at Chowdaiah’ article caught my attention. Immediately I blocked the tickets for 4 people at www.evam.in. I blocked Rs. 250 ticket, as Rs. 100 tickets were not available. Next step was to call my friends. Many of them were busy, some were busy reading the latest Harry Potter book and others gave lame excuses. Tassa disagreed to come saying Rs. 250 for a play is too much, instead he proposed to go for a movie. In one way he was right why to pay Rs.250 for a play based on a book which costs Rs.95. But, in my opinion reading book and seeing a play based on a book are completely different things. Finally after all kinds of brainstorming, I decided go alone for 3.30 pm show, as I didn't wanted to do the dirty job of convincing.


At the venue there was a big crowd dominated by minus 25 people, which is unusual for a theater play. Since the theme was very contemporary, such a crowd was not a surprise.

The play started after a 20 minutes delay. There was an introductory announcement mentioning that this played is staged for first time and duration will be 120 minutes, with no interval. Then they announced that Chetan Bhagat is also with us to see the play. The author stood up and waved the audience. The environment was like premier of a movie.

Coming to the play, I was seeing a play after a long time. Last one was Snow-white and Cinderella at Ravindra kalakshetra. Therefore I cannot comment much about technical aspects. The play was very much loyal to the book. Majority of the sequences in the book were enacted. They even enacted prologue too, it was bit modified. In my opinion this was unnecessary. Some sequences which were outside IIT campus i.e. ‘Alok’s house’, ‘Movie hall’ were skipped using monologues and also by ‘Author Narration’ done by S Vidyuth. Most of the times, he was carrying an ‘Apple Macbook’, don’t know what’s the real reason behind this?

I was very curious, how Operation Pendulum sequence will be enacted especially when Hari[Abhijeet Mohanty] goes to Neha’s[Uttara Krishnadas] house to steal the keys .(pg. 170 in the book). Actually, it was enacted very sensible manner. 10 out of 10 to the playrighter.

Of all the characters I liked Alok[Sarvesh Sridhar]. I expected this character to be most boring of all, but Sarvesh brought the house down showing his talent by enacting various emotions(mostly frustration) of Alok. Many of his dialogues received applause from the audience.

After the end of the play, director gave credits to actor, technicians. Then she invited on stage Chetan Bhagat, the man who created these characters. She thanked him for granting permission for the adaptation.

Chetan Bhagat - answering queries

Chetan Bhagat complemented the team by saying the play was staged with absolute dexterity. He also appreciated the way in which 4 years story was enacted in 2 hours using a single stage. He concluded by saying that these kind of plays based on contemporary themes will definitely revive theater in India. Also, this play should be staged in other parts of India as well(other than Bangalore and Chennai).

After the show I got a call from an unknown number. It was Abhishek S. N, he had got my number from my friend Yashas. We two had already discussed about the play in the morning and he was going for 7.30 pm show. It was nice to meet a person face to face after a long time especially with whom one regularly chat online. We discussed about our work, blogging, forthcoming kannada movies and the projects for which Abhishek is designing the posters.

Also see:
- DesiCritics: Theater Review: Five Point Someone by Madras Players
- Deccan Herald: Leaping off the pages
- Newindpress: Five Point Someone at Chowdaiah.

This blog had default template 'Minima 2 column' since the time it started. As I didn't like other templates provided by blogger, I retained the default one for more than one year.

The two column layout was getting cramped up. So I decided to hunt for templates outside blogger. The search landed me into Blogger Tips and Tricks, where I got 'Minima 3 column fixed' template for download. So the present look and feel is because of this template, with cosmetic modifications from me.

Well changing look and feel is like cooking. One will never know when to stop. I will be continuously making partial changes for next 2-3 days. Looking forward for your feedbacks and suggestions.

Friday Jun 29th, 10.45 pm, yet another boring weekend was on the cards. Suddenly Jatin pinged me on google talk.

Gtalk chat excerpt
Jatin: Hello Shande
10:49 PM me: hi
Jatin: What are you doin tomorrow
me: nothing planned
why ?
Jatin: Willing to come to Shravanabelgola tomorrow
me: how ?
10:50 PM Jatin: Bus
me: how many people ?
Jatin: Currently 2
me: at what time u are leaving ?
Jatin: Morning 7:00
me: oh
10:51 PM when are u planning to come back
Jatin: Same day

Since there was no concrete plans for the weekend, I confirmed my participation to Jatin within 10 minutes.
Immediately I put my camera batteries to charge and got cleared all my queries from Jatin. The other person on board was Rohith(Jatin’s cousin), with whom I had been to 'Ombattu Gudde' and Savandurga.

Gomateshwara

Next day I got up at 5 am ( 1 hr earlier than weekdays). As per plan, I was in front of KSRTC stand enquiry counter at 6.45 am. When I called up Jatin, he said it will take around 10 minutes. Rohith also said the same. The ‘7 am direct bus to Shravanabelagola was already at ‘5A’ platform. I requested conductor to hold on for some time saying my friends are on the way. 7.05 am Rohith came, but no signs of Jatin. The conductor ran out of patience and the bus departed immediately. The next direct bus was at 11.45 am. Rohith asked me to relax saying“hey we can go to taking bus Enroute to Hassan”. Then, we two had breakfast at the bus stand. As soon as we completed the breakfast Jatin came, we immeditely boarded bus to Hassan. We took tickets(Rs. 74 per head) till Chennarayapatna. From Chennarayapatna we took local ksrtc bus to Shravanabelagola(Rs. 7 per head), reached the destination at 11.15 am. First we had dosa at Hotel Abhishek opposite to bus stand.

Vindhyagiri

Vindhyagiri Steps

Vindgyagiri, also known by name Doddabetta is one of the two major hills. Atop there is world's largest monolith, statue of Bahubali (Gomteshwara). One has to ascend the hill using steps, bare foot(mandatory). While ascending we took photographs of downhill view which was dominated by Kalyani.

Kalyani

The temporary structures made for 2006 Mahamastabhisheka were not yet dismantled. On the way there were many medival age inscriptions on the rock surface. These were preserved by covering with glass shield. Next to one of cluster of inscription was Tyaga Kambha. The carvings on this were very unique. On lower part of the pillar there were inscriptions in Kannada.

Tyagada Kambha

We ascended further to reach peak where Bahubali statue is situated. Around the statue there were series of 14 small idols of other thirthankaras called 'Suttalya'. We had darshan of Bahubali. There we had photo session here four about half an hour. I experimented with color swap mode of my S2 IS, by capturing statue in different colors.

Color swap 'Abhishekha'

While descending we had photos of basadis which we skipped while ascending. Jatin took some macro shots with his Pentax SLR.

Food @ Sanmati Jain Bhojanalaya

At 3.45 pm we were at ground level. Jatin and Rohith did some shopping at one of fancy stores. Then we went to Sanmati Jain Bhojanalaya. The Rs. 30 meal was good. They served dhal, roti, play, rice, sambhar, buttermilk. None of the food items was prepared using onion, because many setus have food at this mess.

Chandragiri

After lunch we decided to ascend Chandragiri(Chikkabetta). I remember by history teacher( P. A. Kumar) saying that "Chandragupta Maurya had come this place renouncing his throne. He stayed on Chadragiri opposite to Bahubali statue hill". Atop chandragiri there are basadis of 14 tirthankaras.

One of the Basadis

Of all of them Kattale Basti was very distinct because of its circumambulatory passage. I took photo of the basadi in 10 second exposure.

Katalle Basadi

Later we went to see cave and peak of chandragiri. After having brief photo session we descended.

Footprints on Chandragiri peak, Vindhayagiri in background.

At 6.30 pm there was no direct bus so waited for channarayapatna bus, which we got at 6.45 am. At Channrayapatna we didn’t even waited for 5 minutes for Bangalore bus. The journey was comfortable even though we were seated in last row, thanks to good condition of highway. Initial part of the journey we reviewed snaps in our cameras esp snaps in Jatin’s Pentax SLR. By10.30 pm we were back in Bangalore and concluded the trip by having badam milk at a stall in bus stand.

Have a look at more snaps in picasa album.