I just cannot believe that it’s a year already since I started this blog!!! Oh boy and what a year it turned out to be!!!
Breaking away from the usual norm of keeping my life private, I started writing this blog and no regrets so far… In fact am enjoying every bit of writing and sharing all those little and big events in my life…
Well to start of with, a lot of things have happened over the past one year… I got married!!! And to the one whom I love :-)!!!
Apart from that I have been the same though (except for a few kilos more!!!), a bit more mature, some additional responsibilities (wife, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law – all rolled into one) on my head… Not too sure if am fulfilling them all… And do I feel content? A little I guess…
But there is a long way to go and am optimistic about life and yes, my blog will be the reflection of my life and how it unfolds!!!
So tune in – for there are many more episodes to follow!!!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Freedom Drive!!!
Trying not to break the tradition of “freedom drive”, Sunil and his friends planned a trip. In case you are wondering what that means – Freedom Drive, according to “The Boyz” (Sundru, PJ, GP, Chinu, Barry and Sharath), is a drive undertaken by them on every Independence Day (Aug 15th) and this year was no exception… just that I became a part of it (by default)…
As for me, I always wanted to do something like this from a very long time. Sunil, unfortunately, isn’t that adventurous… I mean, he likes to travel but asking him to drive a long distance is one hell of a task. He’d rather prefer a chauffer-driven car than do something like that. The farthest that we have driven to till now is to Srirangapatna – which is about 120 odd kms from Bangalore.
So here go the details…. The place was finally decided as Belur, Halebidu and Sravanabelagola. Chinu worked out the itinerary for our Freedom Drive (he did a lot of research and picked up the place with the help of lot of resources including some blogs). And there we were… All set for the road trip!!!
My Independence Day began at 5.45am (yes, I had to wake up early, inspite of me not being a morning person). Hats off to poor Sundru for he had to literally pull me out of the bed… I was so frustrated that I could have just cancelled the whole trip for my precious sleep but Sunil’s trick some how worked and I was ready by 6am.. We drove to PJ’s house and parked our car there… We took PJ’s car, picked up Chinu & Sharath from Sharath’s place and set off!!!!
We drove for nearly 2 hours and at around 9 am, we finally stopped at a joint called Mayura Hotel near Adichunchunagiri College for breakfast… Though we had stocked a lot of snack items & quick bites, we weren’t too keen to have those and were eagerly awaiting a place for breakfast… We had some idlis, dosas, tea and coffee and were back on the roads in half hour’s time…
The drive was really awesome till Hassan. The weather, I would say, was on our side… It was slightly sunny with light showers once in a while... Drive to Hassan was really beautiful wherein you get to pass a lot of Sunflower and Marigold filled fields. Many a times we stopped to take couple of snaps and to gaze at the scenery.
The roads were really good (NH48) but the painful part was after Hassan. From Hassan, on the way to Belur, the roads were just horrible, to say the least. Belur & Halebidu are part of the world’s heritage sites but looking at the roads it just didn’t seem so. Well… crossing all the dumps, ditches and the craters on the roads, we managed to reach Belur safely and visited the famous “Chennakeshava Temple” built by King Vishnuvardhana from the Hoysala dynasty in the year 1116 AD. The temple is just so beautiful, filled with intricate sculptures and friezes. Oh!!! I must mention about this guide who took us through the sculptures… He was so obsessed with the temple and the sculptures and took about 40 mins to explain the whole structure of the temple to us. It was fun, hilarious & nevertheless informative to hear him speak in a very exquisite english language.
After spending about an hour there, we made our way to the main road and suddenly realized that Chickmagalur wasn’t far from there – it was just about 20 kms further. Sharath said “Sounds like a plan” and we just felt what he meant!!! It was just a little over 12 pm then and we changed our plans and headed straight to Chickmagalur for lunch at the Taj Garden Retreat!!! It was so unplanned and we managed to reach the place at around quarter past one...
The Taj Garden Retreat was a very enchanting and a beautiful place. It was so relaxing that we almost tempted ourselves to stay there for the entire afternoon but had to decide against it in the interest of time... PJ was keen on finishing lunch, having a massage and having a quiet swim in the pool, but that was not to be!!! We managed to finish lunch (the theme of the entire lunch at the hotel was, obviously, Independence Day!!!) by 3pm and resumed our journey back.
Fortunately for us, it had just rained and we could feel and smell the freshness of the earth and it was just so refreshing and relaxing…
We reached Halebidu at around 4 pm but none of us were all that interested in looking around the place. We got a description about the temple in Belur itself and the temple at Halebidu just looked like a replica of the Belur temple. So, we didn’t waste much time there and decided to just head on. The weather was just right for a cup of coffee / tea and so we helped ourselves with a cup of tea each for all the boyz and I had a cuppa coffee.
On the way back, we kind of lost our way and went somewhere into interior Hassan and wasted around half hour. We had to get back to the highway but just couldn’t seem to get it. However, finally we managed to reach the highway after asking for directions. Having covered nearly 4 places (I am including Hassan here as we nearly went around the town trying to get to the highway), we decided to head back to Bangalore and skip Sravanabelagola but after much speculation, we finally decided to go for it. All the way, we were trying to catch a glimpse of the world’s tallest monolith statue but just couldn’t. The detour from the highway was just 22 kms to & fro and since majority of us hadn’t been to the temple earlier, we had to see it since we were so near to it.
We reached the temple by 5.55pm and got to know that the temple closes by around 6 pm. Now that we were there, we just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to have a look at the Jain Saint Bahubali. We had to cover only 650 STEPS!!! Man… only I know how I managed to climb all those steps by taking regular breaks in between. We finally reached the top and just as our luck would have it, the temple was still open. Thank God!!!
Finally after giving our prayers and spending around 15 mins there, we walked back to the car after having a round of coconut water to quench our thirst.. We had 156 kms to cover and it was already close to 7pm.. Hats of to Sharath who covered the distance in 2 hrs flat and was all the time driving at 120 km/hr speed.. Phew!!!! Awesome stuff!!!
We reached bangalore by 9 pm, dropped off Sharath and Chinu at Sharath’s place and headed for PJ’s house where our car was parked. We finally reached home by 9.45 pm to get set to leave for office the next day...
This was the best Independence Day ever – covered 5 places and had a wonderful drive… What a drive it was!!!
As for me, I always wanted to do something like this from a very long time. Sunil, unfortunately, isn’t that adventurous… I mean, he likes to travel but asking him to drive a long distance is one hell of a task. He’d rather prefer a chauffer-driven car than do something like that. The farthest that we have driven to till now is to Srirangapatna – which is about 120 odd kms from Bangalore.
So here go the details…. The place was finally decided as Belur, Halebidu and Sravanabelagola. Chinu worked out the itinerary for our Freedom Drive (he did a lot of research and picked up the place with the help of lot of resources including some blogs). And there we were… All set for the road trip!!!
My Independence Day began at 5.45am (yes, I had to wake up early, inspite of me not being a morning person). Hats off to poor Sundru for he had to literally pull me out of the bed… I was so frustrated that I could have just cancelled the whole trip for my precious sleep but Sunil’s trick some how worked and I was ready by 6am.. We drove to PJ’s house and parked our car there… We took PJ’s car, picked up Chinu & Sharath from Sharath’s place and set off!!!!
We drove for nearly 2 hours and at around 9 am, we finally stopped at a joint called Mayura Hotel near Adichunchunagiri College for breakfast… Though we had stocked a lot of snack items & quick bites, we weren’t too keen to have those and were eagerly awaiting a place for breakfast… We had some idlis, dosas, tea and coffee and were back on the roads in half hour’s time…
The drive was really awesome till Hassan. The weather, I would say, was on our side… It was slightly sunny with light showers once in a while... Drive to Hassan was really beautiful wherein you get to pass a lot of Sunflower and Marigold filled fields. Many a times we stopped to take couple of snaps and to gaze at the scenery.
The roads were really good (NH48) but the painful part was after Hassan. From Hassan, on the way to Belur, the roads were just horrible, to say the least. Belur & Halebidu are part of the world’s heritage sites but looking at the roads it just didn’t seem so. Well… crossing all the dumps, ditches and the craters on the roads, we managed to reach Belur safely and visited the famous “Chennakeshava Temple” built by King Vishnuvardhana from the Hoysala dynasty in the year 1116 AD. The temple is just so beautiful, filled with intricate sculptures and friezes. Oh!!! I must mention about this guide who took us through the sculptures… He was so obsessed with the temple and the sculptures and took about 40 mins to explain the whole structure of the temple to us. It was fun, hilarious & nevertheless informative to hear him speak in a very exquisite english language.
After spending about an hour there, we made our way to the main road and suddenly realized that Chickmagalur wasn’t far from there – it was just about 20 kms further. Sharath said “Sounds like a plan” and we just felt what he meant!!! It was just a little over 12 pm then and we changed our plans and headed straight to Chickmagalur for lunch at the Taj Garden Retreat!!! It was so unplanned and we managed to reach the place at around quarter past one...
The Taj Garden Retreat was a very enchanting and a beautiful place. It was so relaxing that we almost tempted ourselves to stay there for the entire afternoon but had to decide against it in the interest of time... PJ was keen on finishing lunch, having a massage and having a quiet swim in the pool, but that was not to be!!! We managed to finish lunch (the theme of the entire lunch at the hotel was, obviously, Independence Day!!!) by 3pm and resumed our journey back.
Fortunately for us, it had just rained and we could feel and smell the freshness of the earth and it was just so refreshing and relaxing…
We reached Halebidu at around 4 pm but none of us were all that interested in looking around the place. We got a description about the temple in Belur itself and the temple at Halebidu just looked like a replica of the Belur temple. So, we didn’t waste much time there and decided to just head on. The weather was just right for a cup of coffee / tea and so we helped ourselves with a cup of tea each for all the boyz and I had a cuppa coffee.
On the way back, we kind of lost our way and went somewhere into interior Hassan and wasted around half hour. We had to get back to the highway but just couldn’t seem to get it. However, finally we managed to reach the highway after asking for directions. Having covered nearly 4 places (I am including Hassan here as we nearly went around the town trying to get to the highway), we decided to head back to Bangalore and skip Sravanabelagola but after much speculation, we finally decided to go for it. All the way, we were trying to catch a glimpse of the world’s tallest monolith statue but just couldn’t. The detour from the highway was just 22 kms to & fro and since majority of us hadn’t been to the temple earlier, we had to see it since we were so near to it.
We reached the temple by 5.55pm and got to know that the temple closes by around 6 pm. Now that we were there, we just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to have a look at the Jain Saint Bahubali. We had to cover only 650 STEPS!!! Man… only I know how I managed to climb all those steps by taking regular breaks in between. We finally reached the top and just as our luck would have it, the temple was still open. Thank God!!!
Finally after giving our prayers and spending around 15 mins there, we walked back to the car after having a round of coconut water to quench our thirst.. We had 156 kms to cover and it was already close to 7pm.. Hats of to Sharath who covered the distance in 2 hrs flat and was all the time driving at 120 km/hr speed.. Phew!!!! Awesome stuff!!!
We reached bangalore by 9 pm, dropped off Sharath and Chinu at Sharath’s place and headed for PJ’s house where our car was parked. We finally reached home by 9.45 pm to get set to leave for office the next day...
This was the best Independence Day ever – covered 5 places and had a wonderful drive… What a drive it was!!!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Freedom!
What does freedom mean to you? Is it being patriotic or just a euphoric attachment to your country?
Does it have to do with freedom of action, speech – as laid down by the constitution or just rejoicing the glory of the Indian Flag?
Does it have to do with agony related to the sacrifices for attaining freedom or pledge for the future that the country beholds?
Many more questions like these pop up when you think of 15th August but I can say for all working people that it’s a day off – a day that ensures holiday and gives you time to relax. Whether you sit at home and watch the Prime Minister’s special speech or spend it any other way, the fact remains that it’s the Indian Independence day…. Happy birthday to a republic & free India and here’s wishing India and all of you a great year ahead!!!
Saturday, August 11, 2007
I finished reading it!!!!
Yayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!
OK…First of all, I must admit that though am a big Harry potter fan (self proclaimed) I surprisingly dint hurry myself to read the last book on the first day itself though I received my copy on the very same day it got released. I possessed the book was in itself a great feeling that I let it sink in first and then I finally started reading it yesterday….
But before I narrate my book-reading experience, one confession I must make – the day my book came (July 21st – the first day itself), I ran through the last page first. I just couldn’t stand the suspense and just wanted to know whether “he” survives!!!
And then I just left the book as it is – I didn’t even touch it!
But now I feel really proud to say that I finally finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – the last book of the series. BRILLIANT is such a small insignificant word to describe it. A totally out of the world experience… but the sad part is – it’s all over
I would term this book to be the best out of all the earlier six that I have read. This book puts sense in all the previous ones… The reason for his existence, the secret, the logic etc just unfolds so miraculously and things just fall in place… JKR is just brilliant at it...
And finally, many many thanks to the movie that I can actually relate to the characters so well… Now I am just waiting for the book to be made into a movie and just pray that the movie brings out the actual spirit of the book… I just hope that just how the book is the best of the entire lot, the movie should be no less!!!
An amazing end to a magnificent series!
So long!
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