2 years of thoughts sharing !

Today is second anniversary of this blog. It's been exactly two years since the time I started blogging. As mentioned in the first anniversary post I had to come across many mental hurdles. But after series of positive triggers the thoughts sharing started and the rest is history.



Major milestones/highlights in last one year.
- Moved blog to custom domain: when blogspot domain got blocked in my office, it motivated(forced) me go for a custom domain. The movement took almost 2 months because many technical issues with the vendour.
- Crossed 10K visitor mark: Seriously I never really imagined that the visitor count will reach 5 figure mark one day. Now the blog is almost at the threshold of crossing 20K mark.
- 100th post: Scored a century w.r.t number of posts.

Blogging Peers:
Raveesh has been my best blogger buddy. We two started blogging almost at the same time and have been mutually commenting and complementing each other's posts in the blog. As a result we two have grown a lot as bloggers.
There are many other blogging friends (find their names in the side panel), but majority of them of either gone into long hibernation or may not be in a position to share.

Blogging break:
The break won't be intentional but sometimes it becomes inevitable. It happened during my Paris biz trip and a few weeks before that. Due to lack of time thoughts remained thoughts and didn't get converted into blog posts. I still want to share them but before that I have to resolve to-post-or-not-to-post issue.

Blogging at others places:
I continued my occasional blogging at Bangalore Metblogs. It has been the right place for me to share the thoughts which I want to be shared at a bigger platform. Being a metblogger I got a chance to visit the brand new Bengaluru International Airport, months before the actual inauguration.
The other place (blogging venture) was unofficial-IPL-blog with Aditya, Raveesh and Paras. It was a perfect place for me to share thoughts about cricket's biggest carvinal.

Comments and Novelty factor:
In first year I got many comments, but in the second year eventhough the traffic increased many folds the number of comments decreased. Is it because of novelty factor that I got more comments in 1st year or my posts have become monotonous or people have become too busy to comment or people don't want to put that the same mundane comments ?

In last one year, totally I have posted 71 posts. Of which my favorites have been.
- Andaman trip series
- Paris trip series
- Visa extension saga
- Jenukallu Gudda Hike.

Statistically following are the top posts
- Gaalipata: one step forward, two steps back.
- Sitanadi Rafting.
- Landmark quiz.
- Shravabelagola Trip.

Anniversary special posts
I had some interesting stuffs to share and discuss but was looking for an occasion to share it. Finally decided to post them as anniversary special posts which will be following this post. Have a look at them too.

Siddara Betta Expedition

This is one of my trackback posts. The trip was as on March 30th 2008 and was planned, organized by Harsha. The participants were myself, Harsha's brother & sister, Rajesh, RajMa, Poornima, Divya, Ganesh, Ruchi & Aaditya, Navneeth, Jyothi M(her mother, aunt).

Route to get there:
Bangalore->Nelmangala->Koratagere->SiddaraBetta

Activities:
- Ascent by steps
- Puja at Sidlingeshwara temple atop the hill.
- Cave exploration.

A week before the trip Harsha had casually asked me whether I am willing to join for a trek to some betta. I replied that I am interested but will confirm later. Two days before the trek he e-mailed to all probable participants, listing everyone as confirmed - with some funny reasons about the people who were not coming. I too was on confirmed list, Nice strategy Harsha ! Ignoring all ifs and buts I decided to get on board.

For transportation Harsha has booked a 13 seater Tempo Traveller. Majority of us gathered at Harsha's home at left the place at 7 am. En route to the destination, when the vehicle was in highway we decided to do some activity. The unanimous choice was Dumb Charades. For making the game more amusing and difficult we decided to mime only Hindi Movies. Since there was no established protocol among ourselves the enacting and cracking-the-clue turned out to be hilarious many a times.

At 10.30 am we were at the foot of Siddara Betta. Harsha briefed us about the mythological significance of the betta. It was the same betta which Lord Hanuman had got sanjeevani to save Lakshmana during Ramyana war. Next we had breakfast at Harsha's relative house. In the mean time Jyothi joined us with her Mother and Aunt. At 12 noon we started off with our first task i.e. ascending to the top by steps.

In the beginning itself, myself and Rajma were in the end. After ascending 20-30 steps the combination of hot sun and just-consumed-breakfast created vomiting sensation. Well Rajma also had the same feeling, his condition was even more extreme and he immediately started to puke while we were resting under a tree besides the steps. After ascending a few steps Rajma puked again. We realised that having breakfast just before the ascent was not the right decision. I was with Rajma when he was undergoing all this trauma and simultaneously was controlling my abnormal biological activity. Inspite of all these we persisted and continued to ascend in installments.

Buttermilk the saviour
Then we came across a cottage type shelter. In it there was a small shop of eatbales. The important thing was that the vendor was selling Buttermilk. I had four glass of buttermilk and it annulled all my abnormal sensations. A great relief indeed, God bless creator of Buttermilk it was an absolute saviour for us.

Since we were not spottable, the rest of the group in front of us assumed that we have given up and returned back. But the determination and persistence took us to the top we were at the peak at 1.30 pm. First we had bath with cold water from small kalyani in temple premises. After that we offered prayers to Sidlingeshwara Swamy.

Cave Exploration
The next activity was cave exploration. Harsha had a local guide for this activity. In initial stretch itself we had to crawl on our knees. In the whole expedition we climbed like monkeys, crawled like reptiles and jumped like rabbits. We had photo session at many memorable places. In between we came across a mini ashram type house, according to the guide in that a rishi is medidating in it for last 15 years. In this expedition also I was in last but one position and Rajma was last. Being in last position for most part of the expedition he earned the tag list->tail.

After the exploration it was time go down. The sunlight intensity has reduced we descended without any difficulty. At 4 pm we back to foot of the hill and had lunch at Harsha's relative house. At 5.15 pm we started our return journey.

Return journey
On the way back we played antakshari. It turned out to be a marathon game courtesy two databases Poornima and Divya. They used to sing songs without even thinking for a second. Others too chipped in with a few songs. The major highlight of the game was difficulty in finding songs starting with 'La', instinctively we were not be able to recall the songs, but after brainstorming we found sufficient number of them.

There were some tense moments while returning. Divya, who stays in a girl's hostel was supposed to be back in her room by 7 pm. But we managed to drop her by 8 pm. Thankfully, after listening about the situation her Hostel Warden allowed her to get in.

I was back to my home by 8.30 pm concluding a memorable expedition in which we(myself and Rajma) were able complete the expedition inspite of all odds.

Maidenahalli Blackbuck Reserve Forest

Route:
Bangalore->Nelmangala--(NH-4)--Tumkur by pass->(Sirsa Road)—right turn->Madhurgiri->Puravara->(towards I.D. halli)->Maidenahalli.
for more details have a look at reference blog.

Distance: 160+ kms. (including distance covered by NICE road).

Preferable mode of transport: Car.

Instead of presenting the report about the trip in a usual chronological narration, this time I am presenting it in a different way. Imagine that one of my friends say 'SP' asks me "how was the weekend" on Monday morning and I respond by narrating about the trip through Q&A.

SP: Hi Shande ... how was the weekend.?
Me: It was nice. On saturday(June 14th) I had been to Maidenahalli Reserve Forest with my friends Rohit and Jatin. The other two people on board were Rohit’s friends Ravindra and Sourav.

SP: Reserve forest ? where is it ? what's the big deal about the place.
Me: The reserve forest is near Madhugiri in Tumkur district and it has highest number of Blackbucks in Karnataka.

SP: What was the main acitivity ?
Me: To shoot black bucks ..

SP: What ? are u crazy ?
Me: Relax ... I mean to take photographs of Blackbucks ... not the Salman Khan type harakiri as you're thinking.

SP: How you got to the place ?
Me: Since there were no proper KSRTC bus to the place, we planned to travel on our bikes. Then getting to know about the distance - 165 km we dropped the plan of going by bikes. Finally, we traveled by Sourav's Wagon-R.

SP: 165 km ? isn't it too much for a place in Tumkur district. Can you tell me about the route in detail.
Me: The distance includes the round-about route(Kanakpura Road->Mysore Road->Tumkur Road by NICE road) we took from Rohit's house to Nelmangala. This was to avoid traffic congestion in Tumkur Road. From Nelmangala we followed the route mentioned in the reference blog.

SP: Was the reference blog helpful ? Were you able to reach the destination without any hassles.
Me: Not exactly. We followed the blog documentation till Madhugiri. There was some confusion after Madhugiri as the sign boards mentioned the reference blog were missing. Then with the help of local villagers we managed to reach the destination. Especially the last right turn between Puravara and I.D. halli, we had to ask 2-3 different people to find the exact right turn.

SP: Btw how was NICE Road?
Me: It was awesome; we covered the Kanakpura Road to Tumkur Road within 20 minutes. While coming back also we took the NICE road till Mysore Road. After experiencing travel in NICE road, NH-4 highway looked like an ordinary road.

SP: What was total duration of the trip?
Me: We left Rohith’s home around 7 am and came back to the city by 10 pm. One-way travel time was four and half hours including pit stops for food.

SP: What about food ? Are there any hotels nearby?
Me: No ... While going we had breakfast on the way at Kamat Upachar in NH-4. As per advice of the reference blog we took the lunch (Rice Bhat) as parcel. While coming back we had evening snacks had at A1-Plaza. The hotel with reasonably priced food is functional in spite of closure Reliance pertrol bunk recently(because of oil price hike).

SP: Coming to the main point .. were you really able to find Blackbucks ?
Me: Yeah … Initially before entering the reserve forest itself we found a Blackbuck at a distance of 20-25 meters and captured it in our cams. This phenomenon repeater 2-3 times. May be the animal was not able to recognize us, as were sitting in the car. As soon as we got down from the car the scenario changed and they started running away from us. Later in the evening we found one watch tower in the reserve forest, sat silently in it and played the waiting game. After few minutes Blackbucks appeared in a group. But this time, it was sufficiently far from us and we were not able to capture in our cam. Using binoculars we managed get good glimpse of them. Rohit had other thoughts, he chased them cautiously to take a snap of them. Have to check with him how the snap has actually come out.

SP: Are there any other animals in the same place?
Me: Nothing else in particular. To photograph you will find a few birds. Other than that there are usual stuffs such butterflies, bugs and chameleons.

SP: Were there any hilarious moments?
Me: There were many. The major one was optical illusion of a Blackbuck. While entering the Reserve Forest we thought a cactus plant to be a Blackbuck. It was really looking like a Blackbuck from distance.

SP: Would you recommend Maidenahalli as a Weekend Getaway ?
Me: yeah .. why not .. seeing and capturing wildlife is anyday a thrilling experience. I would recommend that one should stay overnight by taking permission from the Forest department, according to local villagers majority of the Blackbucks can be spotted after 7 pm.

SP: Thanks Shande for sharing the experience and the details.
Me: U are welcome! I shared some photgraphs in flickr and picasa. please go through them.


Some important photographs:

Sign board for right turn towards Madhugiri in NH-4.

Forest department signboard at Madhugiri.
from there Maidenahalli is 25 km.

Right turn to Maidenalli: in between Puravara and I.D. Halli.
Remember there is no sign board. It is very easy to miss this right turn.

Other photographs shared at:
- Picasa album
- Flickr set: Maidenahalli
- Rohith's snaps at flickr.

Bangalore Photowalk 2.0

The 2nd Bangalore Photowalk took place on Sunday - June 1st. The event was organized by Karthik S, one of the varacious bloggers in Bangalore. The walk started from Ravindra Kalakshetra at 7.45 am and concluded at Old Central Jail at 9.30 am. On the way we got a lot of stuffs to photograph.

Isn't it really strange ? We usually shoot extensively outside the city but within the city it will be very minimal. May be because of conscious when we are alone. But being in a group i.e. in Photowalk all consciousness will be annulled.

Mythic society

Sanchi Stupa

By traveling in a bus or car we don't really observe each and every structure. But the Photowalk 2.0 gave a good platform to see and photograph many structures around corporation. So many times I have traveled in Nrupthunga Road but this was the first time I spotted Mythic Society building on the same road!

Mythic society is one the city's best intellectual spaces. The society has one of the finest libraries on Indology. (source: The Bengaluru Pages).

We discovered a new Buddha temple in Gandhinagar. The major attraction in the temple premise is a replica of Sanchi Stupa.

Like many similar events I met some new people in this event too. Mainly I interacted with Ritesh Swamy and Mahesh Shantaram.

My snaps of the event are shared at Flickr-Photowalk 2.0.

For Young Minds ?

From May 26th, Deccan Chronicle has started circulation in Bangalore. The ad-department of the newspaper is trying all possibles ideas in the box to attract young audience.

One of the recent hoarding was a ad depicting a lady with news printed on her back. Will this create loyal subscribers? only coming time can tell.



A few days back I got a invitation copy the paper while traveling in a BMTC volvo bus. At initial glance the newspaper looks more like a hybrid of regular newspaper and a tabloid. Need to have a look at more editions to make proper judgment.

Read more about my opinion at bangalore.metblogs.com

Big Banyan Tree(Dodda Alada Mara) and Manchinabele Backwaters

Big Banyan Tree or Dodda Alada Mara is one of the nearest destination to Bengaluru for a day trip. But inspite of close proximity I had never had been to this place and it remained on my 'to-visit list' for a long time. The visit materialized when Harish Malleshappa organized a bike -trip last Saturday(June 7th). For the trip the other people on board were Rohit(Roti), Jatin, Subhajit, Nagesh, Sanjay, Manohar, Raghvendra, SaiSudha and Raveesh.

To get there

On Mysore Road take a deviation to the right at Kumbalagod junction(right after Raja Rajeshwari Dental College). Proceed 7 kms to reach the base of Banyan tree canopy.

There is an alternate route from Magadi Road, not sure about condition of roads.



View Larger Map

Our plan was meet at a KSTDC hotel next to Banyan tree. I picked up Raveesh at Mysore Road - Ring Road Junction(Nayadahalli) and proceeded towards the destination. The ride was very comfortable thanks to excellent condition of Mysore Road.

Alada Mara

We reached the destination around 8.30 am. Our meeting point - KSTDC hotel was no longer a landmark as it was closed long time back. While waiting other people to arrive we had brief photography session inside the park(canopy of banyan trees). In between we paused the photography session and had breakfast(Idly and Pakoda) at a small hotel opposite to the park. Later, the photography session resumed after the breakfast. We captured the cluster of trees in every possible perspective and many of us made sure to have portrait(read matrimonial) photographs with canopy in background.


Manchinabele Backwaters

Next destination was Manchinabele backwaters which is 8km from the banyan tree. The road was in horrible condtion since it was being laid afresh. On the way we came across a upcoming structure besides a big dish antenna. It seemed like an hi-fi center and from enquiry we came to know that the place is going to be monitoring center ISRO's Chandrayaan.

While approaching Machinabele we had photo sessions at many points. At one point on a rocky formation next to the reservoir we had snacks.

Next we proceeded towards the army training camp. A little distance away from that was the bank of the backwaters. At the backwater bank we witnessed a group of 7-8 eagles doing some continuous acrobatic stunts(one-by-one) to a catch fish. Capturing this behaviour turned out to be a challenge to all the photography enthusiast among us. The challenge session went on for more than half an hour.

In between many of us except Raveesh, Subhajit and me proceeded ahead. We three after finishing the eagle-photo-session looked for other people. But no one was in the sight and there was no network coverage to know their whereabouts. We could spot only Jatin and he too was not sure about other people. We waited and waited in a shade and in order to pass-the-time we tried out some macro-mode photography experiments by capturing a caterpillar.

When myself and Raveesh were about to start the return ride, missing people(Harish, Nagesh etc) appeared. They had got into water for bathing and met with a little freak incident. The misadventure happened when someone while trying a swimming stroke lost the control and panicked. In the process three people had almost got drown. By god's grace everyone were back fit and fine.

Before starting return ride we went to other side of the reservoir had a glance at front-view of the dam and took photographs too. Then, our plan was to have lunch at some hotel in Mysore road. Later we dropped the lunch plan after having Yell-Neeru in front of Banyan tree.

Mukthi Naga Temple.
On the way back we offered prayers at Mukthi Naga temple. The temple has a 12 feet tall, 36 tonne in weight Naga monolith. To quench our curiosity about the place we posted query to the pujari. He asked us to do nine pradakshane of the enclosed nagara hutta in front of the temple. After doing the rounds we came back to temple and one the temple's caretaker narrated the story. It was something like this - 200 years ago some enthusiastic person (a illiterate) used to meditate at the same place. While meditating cobras from nearby pit(hutta) used to come besides him. On account of having this great power, the person became famoush and used to do nagara dosha bhanga for affected people. Fast forward... 20 years back, someone rich person had bought the present land. In spite of lot of efforts he could not cultivate on the land. Then the rich person contacted a reknowned astrologer Subramanya shastri. When the Shastriji came to the place, the cobras reappeared. On observing this Shastriji declared place as a holy place and advised the rich person to construct temple at the same place and the resultant was Mukthi Naga temple.

Return ride
After Naga darshan we continued our return ride. As soon we stepped into Bangalore zone(right after 'welcome to Bangalore' board) we experienced the traffic congestion. The city is definitely blessed with traffic! Wading through the congestion I dropped Raveesh at Nayadahalli and came ck to home concluding the trip. It was a small trip from duration perspective and the ride duration was shorter than my daily journey to my office!

Grevin Wax Museum

In between my hectic work schedule at Paris, I just had a look at news-feed of indiafm.com. In one of items it was mentioned that Shah Rukh Khan(SRK) had come to Paris for inaugurating his wax statue at Grevin mueseum. According museum's site SRK had taken some timeout from his IPL schedule and fulfilled his promise to visit the Wax museum. As soon as reading the news the place got added to my 'to-visit' list. The visit got materialized on May 8th(national holiday in Paris) with Hussu and Gaurav Jain.

Museum Entrace

The entry fee was 18.5 Euros ... double the fee of Louvre museum! For a while we thought of skipping the museum but decided against it as we won't coming to Paris every other day. The first section of museum was 'Hall of Mirrors', there we witnessed a light and audio show for 10 minutes. It was really presented in a creative way.

With Julia Roberts and Sean Connery

After the light show from the adjacent hall, the statue-darshan started. First we came across statues of Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Julia Roberts and also of Elton John playing piano. Then we came across a mini-audi in which there were statues of some French personalities. The only noted personality in the hall was Jackie Chan. In the hall one hilarious thing happened. In a few chair some sitting statues were placed. In order to take rest Hussu sat in between the two statues and unknowingly mirroring the pose of one of the statues next to him. A group of european tourist thought Hussu also as a wax statue. All of them burst into laughter as soon as they realised that Hussu is a human!

Amelie Mauresmo

In the subsequent halls we came across statues of Sports Personalities such as Michael Schumacher, Amelie Mauresmo, Zidane. Arstist such as Da Vinci, Picasso. Political head of states such as Sarkozy, Bush and also of French astrologer Nostradamus. In between the hall some scenes of Frecnh history - French revolution, Battle of Waterloo were depicted.

Battle of Waterloo

Three people with three cameras became really irritating as each one of us was particular of getting a snap in his own camera. Also Gaurav was very mush particular for getting his snap in such and such a compostion. He had some no-so-good camera and it made my job even more miserable.


Lastly we entered a big hall and in the beginning of there was a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. In the same hall other prominent statues were of Marlyn Monroe, Charles de Gaulle, Michael Jackson, Pele, Albert Einstein. we though where is Shah Rukh Khan ? Since the statue was recently inaugrated it was placed in the one of special subsection. In first impression the statue was not as sensible as per our expectations. The long hairs made it look more artificial. Next to statue there was a LCD and in which Om Shanti Om movie was getting played. We had a brief photo session standing next to the statue. I was indeed a mission accomplishment for us.

with Shah Rukh Khan

In level-1 of the same hall there was a section dedicated to illustrate the process of making wax-statue through charts, photos and videos. Finally before leaving the hall we had one last glance at the statues especially of SRK.

Thus the visit to Grevin Muesuem came to end. The visit was a different experience but 18.5 Euros really expensive if we take into account the variety of personalities on display. From different angle, the visit made me realise that I am taller than many famous personalities !

Walks in India series on India Travel Blog

During the month of June, India Travel Blog will be featuring a series of articles on Walks in India.

Unlike in many countries, walks and walking tours are not common or popular in India. This series intends to promote the idea of walks that can enable travellers to see and experience the places better by getting closer. The series explores short and easy walking trails across India, with which a traveller can witness history, culture, life, landscapes and heritage of the country.

The series will have fifteen walking trails, published through the month of June, containing detailed description of the walk along with maps, difficulty level, best season to do the walk, time of the day and distance of the trail.

The places include, but are not limited to metros and cities, and are chosen from every corner of the country. The walk intends to cover a lot of variety, such as walking the sand dunes in a village in Rajasthan, experiencing devotion on the bank of Ganga, seeing history come alive in the remains of ancient structures and short walks in snow amidst views of the snowy peaks.

Walks are a great way to see places, get up close to people and interact, observe carefully and see things better. They help the traveller take time and feel involved with the scenery instead of buzzing past and seeing things as a window-view. This series will assist you to find some great walks from all along the country and feel its pulse.

Visit India Travel Blog - Walks in India for more details.

About India Travel Blog
India Travel Blog( http://travel.paintedstork.com/blog/ ) is a popular travel blog with personal insights, first impressions and detailed description of places to visit in India. The frequently updated blog covers the country from end-to-end, with travel stories and beautiful images.

The extravanganza is over.

The billion dollar cricketing extravaganza i.e. IPL is finally over and Rajasthan Royals emerged as champions.

• From my side it was most closely followed event in recent times. I bookmark more than 100 articles and read each one of them in between lines. Also I blogged about the league unofficialipl.com with my friends Aditya and Raveesh.
• We blogged about various speculations, gossips, news items and of course about cricketing aspects too.
• I missed the first phase of the league because of Paris biz trip. But followed the matches in cricinfo. After coming to India, in second phase I saw almost all the matches live! Every day after 8 pm it was just cricket on TV.
• I also went to see a cricket match Royal Challengers Bangalore v/s Delhi Daredevils in stadium. Even though it was a boring match, the entertainment quotient(read cheerleaders) of the IPL made it an experience to cherish.
• The nail biting final was a treat to watch. But somehow I felt it lacked the punch of India-Pakistan T20 world-cup final. There was no tension and superlative excitement. I was switching loyalty every moment.
• In the finals, other than Rajasthan's winning moment I liked the most was the way Chennai Superkings gracefully responded to the defeat. They patted each other for good performance in a huddle and took the collective responsibility for the defeat. Once again it was display of high emotional quotient by MS Dhoni.
• The success of the league once again proved the point that 'Live action(drama) is more amusing to watch than a scripted drama'.