Hampi, at last

A late post about a trip that happened in March. Anyway, Sudden decisions, quick plans and we were off to Hampi, the former capital of mighty Vijayanagara Empire. Though train was the preferred choice, was not able to get tickets. KSRTC operates a single bus to Hampi and it turned out to be a bumpy ride. Info: There are lot of options to choose from, if you decide to stop at Hospet, a town near Hampi. Anyway, we wasted no time in finding a homestay in Hampi Bazaar close to Virupaksha Temple, and it looked decent.

Plan was to complete the sites around Kamalapur on the first day. Hired a bicycle (Rs.40 per cycle) and started the trip around 9AM. Started the trip with visit of the Monolithic bull in Hampi Bazaar, after which pushed towards Kamalapur. First stop was at Chandrasekhara temple, Saraswati temple and Octogonal tank followed by visit to Hazara Rama temple. The Hazara Rama temple had too many sculptures inside and on the outer walls. The ruins in front of the temple, just reminded how mighty the Vijayanagar empire might have been during its peak and how bad the invasion was. The beheaded bull and broken trunks of elephants stands as a symbol of invasion after centuries have passed. We then proceeded to Zenana Enclosure, which encloses the Lotus Mahal, elephant stables, Queen's Palace basement and a small museum.

After a reasonable good food at a small tamil shop outside Zenana enclosure proceeded to Royal Enclosure. It did look great with the Mahanavami Dibba or the grand platform from where king used to watch the annual parade, underground chamber, the stepped bath and a lot of ruins. Stepped bath looked great. On the way back, visited Queen's bath which didn't look very interesting except for the name, Danaik enclosure which housed few more ruins, the underground shiva temple or Prasanna Virupaksha temple, statue of Ugra Narasimha, Badavi Linga, and the Krishna Temple. Cycling was fun after a long time and the hot sun was dehydrating. We were lucky enough to return in time to climb the Hemakutta hills for the sunset. The place was filled with foreigners from all around the world and for whatever reason we were the only people representing our country. The sunset was wonderful so was the Hemakutta temple complex and the Sasivekallu Ganesha statue. An exhaustive but satisfactory day at the end.

Day 2 : Woke up early at around 5.15am and climbed Matanga hills, the highest point in Hampi for the sunrise. Once again, we were the only people from India there. Waited for the sunrise rejoicing the view of Achutha Raya temple complex from the top. The sun rise was awesome. After that returned back to room, got ready and went to Virupaksha temple, followed by visit to Hemakutta temple complex which also houses the Kadalekallu Ganesha among so many other beautiful temples. We continued as per plan and proceeded to Vittala temple complex stopping at Achutha Raya temple, which was almost deserted. Proceeded via Courtesan's street towards Vittala temple complex, visiting other small temple complexes, Sugriva's cave, King's balance. At last the Vittala temple complex, which houses the infamous Stone Chariot, the musical pillars and the Kalyana mandapam. With that we had almost reached the end of the trip. We had covered almost all the places we had planned for. Only item pending in the to-do list was a cool bath in Tungabhadra. We had a lot of time and Tunga in front and the next few hours vanished in the river. Little later, started the journey back to room, and in the way explored few more temples that were hidden from the normal path.

The only disappointment during the trip was food in Hampi Bazaar in front of the Virupaksha temple. Hotels are run by locals and food is a little more than horrible. If a foreigner has to rate Indian food based on the food available there, it would be close to horrible.

Anyway, Hampi turned out to be another satisfactory trip with Sai and Jeyahari, who were enthusiastic when it came to visiting places and fun to hang around with. Think the blog entry just managed to list the places, anyway believe me Hampi  was a lot fascinating and is worth a visit.

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/sens2003/HampiTrip

Invisible Boundaries!!!

Caution: Feel free to stop reading after this line, nothing of great importance below.

Walked slowly through the cold bangalore streets in half sleep. We entered our house after a full ten day vacation at hometown. It didn't take time to realize that somebody has been spending their vacation in our house when we were not there. The plastic covers were out of the fridge and floating across the kitchen. Not that we keep it cleanly stacked, but dont leave it in the path. And there it was. Shit!!! That is the last thing we wanted in our house, which gets cleaned only when one of us feel probability of survival has gone really low. A bit of exaggeration, if you had missed it. Anyway, news was that the little pigeon felt it can use our house as its home when we were away, entered through the gaps in the exhaust fan and had freely roamed around freely, pooping wherever it felt.

Decided to put an end and covered the gaps in exhaust fan with plastic covers. Relief i thought. Next day i was woken by the cooings of a Pigeon. Continued for further few days. Looks like we had actually done it a favour by closing it and providing a good place to build its nest. Oops bad idea!!! The kitchen was getting more nasty.

Last Sunday, i was hyper active, decided to clean the house, heard the cooing sound, removed the plastic covers, cleaned the nest under construction and switched on the exhaust fan. All was fine, till the bird returned, sat in the opposite  wall and started searching for the nest!!! That did make me feel like a real bad guy :( :( Felt pity for the pigeon, felt angry on myself for disturbing a home. The pigeon looked helpless & confused.  It has not done anything wrong, only that it crossed an invisible boundary. I was remorseful.

What to do ?What else, take a photo of it and decide never to let it come near our home to save all the troubles.

Short Story of a Blog post

Some random thought at some random place. The thought looks so great!!!! Somewhere from the convolutions the command comes, go blog it and archive it forever. The command is supported with a steady flow of ideas. Under those situations there is never a shortage of words. The continuity of thought amazes me. Seldom do i get so many ideas. The mind fills up the content in few minutes with the similes, oxymorons, metaphors etc etc. The post is ready. Waits in the mind searching for opportunity to upload into the wordpress servers. Alas!!! Thats when you are far away from the digital world. The mobile connectivity too decides to take a break. Anyway a decision is made, a blog about it will be made in future about it.

The second half, when actually the thoughts are getting converted to bits and bytes. Vaguely remember the title chosen initially.   Unfortunately, most of the time seems to be happen after midnight, after hours of browsing facebook(dont know for what), looking after a randon nonsense bug or a movie. The search for thoughts starts. The head was full of ideas when it first originated. Now it feels like a read from /dev/zero :( :( Ok sleep on the keyboard for 10 minutes after typing the first paragraph. Wakeup and save it as draft.

Now, the conclusion. It is no longer an interesting post that was in the mind. Rather an unfinished job. And it does disturb a lot. So on a day when some bugs dont get fixed, need something to complete and feel satisfied. Logon, add a little more BS, complete it and publish. Voila!!! Atlast a post is made and here it is!!!

Shravanbelagola - Bike Trip

"Hampi" i said. Sai approved, and added if not anyone both of us will complete the trip. Ok, that was encouraging, if not Hampi, the probability of breaking out of bangalore was more that weekend. Soon Hampi was ruled out due to lack of crowd. Skandagiri was rejected since night trekking was no longer allowed there. Funny part, looks like few Policemen use it to bribe money from visitors. Even in bangalore, traffic police work with full force on weekends!! Anyway leave that. So the final option was Shravanabelagola - a jain piligrim center. And it was planned to be a bike trip. Exciting (to think)!!!!

The plan was to start early before bangalore wakes up. Sai took the job of disturbing the dreams and accomplished it with perfection. Started at around 6.20AM with free roads and early morning chillness to tackle. The ride was smooth, as the Unicorn and Apache sped at 80 to 90 KMPH till we reached NH4. After that the speedometer wobbled between 90s and 100s and at times above that too. Fun, it was. Can call it madness/risk or whatever. But the fingers had gone numb, felt more like a wood holding on to the clutch and accelerator. Sun popped up slowly and it was battling against the early morning chillnesswhen we reached Bangalore - Mangalore highway. The highway was free,  the silent Unicorn glided at 90-100 KMPH. Cool breeze, early morning sun, a smooth bike, free highway everything was in our favour.  Those bike advertisements are true, you can forget even if it is a girl sitting behind. The four lane road ended, and we took the SH to Shravanabelagola with 18KMs left to cover. We had reached there in exactly 3 Hrs, with 3 pit stops few of which were considerably long.

Finished breakfast and took 10 minutes to reach the top of first peak, Vindhyagiri. ASI has done some work, maintaining the structures, but cementing them has spoiled the architectural beauty. Highlight was the 57ft Gommatheshwara statue. Same story with Chandragiri too. The temple complex also houses few beautiful temples. At the top there was Chandragupta Paduke. After a while came down and started back to bangalore with a full watermelon packed. The journey was once again smooth, till we reached the bangalore in the evening. Back to maddening traffic and pothole filled roads. Anyway a welcome break, it was.

Photos - https://picasaweb.google.com/sskganesan/ShravanaBelaGolaBikeTrip, https://picasaweb.google.com/111446569907392516250/Shravanabelagola?noredirect=1

Work = Life

Ting!!! Ting !!! The little disturbance amidst "Asku Laska" forced me to switch tabs in my firefox and open the gtalk window. Knew, it would be one among the very few privileged people and it was. Had adorned the cloak of invisibility in gtalk, since i felt that it was disturbing my bug fixing rate, the rate at which i find which variable should be set to 0/1 or which if loop needs an extra condition to fix the high priority bug in the C code. The restriction in Gtalk was one among the self imposed restrictions. Anyway the productivity remained constant, as mind found ways and indulged in other activities, while the friendly chats vanished altogether. Anyway back to the conversation windows, it was my close friend Mr.X who had pinged.

me: not sleeping ?
time should be around 1 ?
X: 12:40
X: back to form after long time..
:)
me: he he he he :)
so how is life going ?
X: nowadays its ok.. not much work too. may be damager has to come..
next week sangoodhuradhukune vandhuruvan..
but poor thing is ur qn was how is life.. and i am answering about work..:(
me: ha ha ha...
yeah sad part..

LOL, I would have given the same reply if somebody had asked me about my "life". From that day started cautiously noticing response of people around me for the question "How is life" and it is the same. It starts with what they are working on, the work load, their manager (most of them simply called as moron), how long they stay in office etc etc etc. One thing to feel happy about is, everybody is on the same boat :)

If not work, what is this life all about ? How should we go about living it ? That is one scary question to ask anyone. Because everybody have their opinion about it and the scary part is most of them will try to thrust it down your throat.
P.S. Anyway, this conversation prevented me from deactivating my Facebook account, which i thought was taking up a lot of time.

The Greener Past

[caption id="attachment_359" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="http://i.imgur.com/qWy2u.jpg"][/caption]

 

Stood there at the terrace feeling the cool and gentle breeze from the east. It felt like a child's light kiss. Saw a few cranes, and a peacock searching the fields for food.  Delighted, i stood watching the vast expanse of land in front of me. I wished it would remain like that forever. And i knew i would not get a single soul in that area who would similar feelings.

Anyway, quickly traveled back in time and the old memories emerged from the rusted mind. We had shifted to our home from the every crowded, ever friendly colony life. Our home looked remote and desolate, and i quickly decided that the area is lifeless. Soon i was proved wrong.  The first rainy season was special. When it rained, the area was became a scenic spot. To us it was like Venice. When we get out, it is just water everywhere. Usually the canals breach their boundaries, and it becomes difficult to differentiate the lake nearby and the area. As usual man made boundaries, wiped off by nature's fury. To others houses floating in water looked funny, to me it was fun. For i got to watch snakes for the first time & crabs too. Anytime i was able to see around 10 snakes in water. Snakes of different colors, different textures. Remember the time, when i ventured into water and a snake slithered in between my legs.  Lost in childish enthusiasm, killed a lot when they ventured to land. Should be more than 25 i think. The only snake i have hit and left without killing is a Cobra :-) As myths have it, Cobra's dont forget their offenders and take revenged and kill them. Anyway, I am Still waiting!!!! FYI, i stopped killing snakes after that. Once i saw Cobra mating with another snake in real. Early in the morning, when i am starting to school, would see Mongoose leisurely crossing the street. Everytime i wished, i would see it fighting with a Cobra, but it never happened.

As water drained, different varieties of birds & cranes used to visit the place. Few looked like they had migrated from nearby places. When it becomes dry, we get a flock of peacocks as visitors. Around 10 or 11, used to visit the fields nearby. It was here i was first introduced to Quails (Kaadai) and Grey Francolins (Gowthari). Nomads, occupy the area around the lake with their ducks and we used to visit them at times to get Duck's egg, Cucumber, Brinjal which they grow.

Once as usual was aimlessly watching the fields nearby from the terrace, suddenly saw three dogs in a line running hard with their tongues out. Soon found a wild rabbit at the front. It was mesmerizing to see the rabbit's effortless jumps and the agility. Had the effect of watching Nat Geo in real. After a while, they dogs came back disappointed. At times saw rabbits searching for food and hopping away, when i walk aimlessly through the fields. What i missed that time was a digital camera.

I was lost in those thoughts when sound of the bulldozer brought me back to reality. The land was being cleared and will eventually give way to some apartment or bungalow. The rabbits are no more, the peacocks have reduced, so are cranes, Kaadai and Gowtharis, snakes i haven't seen for a long time and crabs are extinct i guess. What was once a home to snakes, crabs, peacocks, country birds & Rabbits is now an opportunity to make Lakhs & Crores.  What if a 4th grade guy shifts to a house in this area now ? What will he do ? Will he lose himself in man made toys and the virtual video games? Will he miss something ? What made man constraint himself to a walled prison and feel proud about it ? With few random crazy thoughts, i watched the bulldozer returning from work. Atlast, the area was slowly turning lifeless!!!!

De-Spectacled

Woke up in the morning, and looked around, and thought for a while how can it look like this now. It took a second to realize and remember. Got down from my unicorn, was about to remove my helmet when something stopped me for a second. Realization. Same happens multiple times, when the hand scratches the space between the eyes. Habit, that i had got used to in the past 12-13 years of wearing spectacles.

There is a short story as to why i went for eye checkup before 12 years. Confessions have to be crisp and unclear. If you have any doubts, keep it with yourself, as i wont answer any of them. Anyway, when i was in 7th or 8th, we had a maths teacher, who teaches with great interest and care. And obviously she was strict. Silent whispers, gossips during the class were treated with heavy punishments. It was internal test that day, and i had not prepared well, sitting in the last desk was asking my friend something. Since the rest of the class was in full silence, i was caught. True to the name of friendship, my friend gave all the credit of the mischief to me. End result was i got around 12 out of 25. I Now that was enough to get my mom mood out when she returns from work and for an hour discussion at home. I was thinking about a reason, could not think much, just told the i wrote the question wrong since i could not see it clearly.The discussion ended and the life with the spectacles began.Soon i was adorned with a big, round spectacles. First it was weird, then it became part of life, soon it was the third and fourth eye. Have slept with specs on, not intentionally for dreams, but unintentionally which would leave me with bent specs. Never felt bad for wearing specs, or without specs also it was equally horrible, fortunately/unfortunately ;)

Anyway, thought about the option of lasik once i came out of college. When my parents brought it up, i was against it, as i didn't want to play with eyes. After watching few friends in safe state after years of surgery, decided to go with it. So before one month, did it, and gave rest to my spectacles. Very few friends bought the above reason. Can blame them, at 26 purchase of a pair of kerchief will also be considered as preparation for marriage. May be parents had it in back of mind, to me it was a good opportunity to get rid of the specs.

 

KumaraParvatha Trek - A walk above the Clouds

A blog after a long time. Finally accomplished one of the trips that remained hidden in the convolutions for a long time. And we accomplished it on Oct 15, 2011. A quick plan and fast action saw us boarding the Kannur Express on the weekend. With tents and sleeping bags, packets of bread we were all set to conquer the highest peak in South India, KumaraParvatha. The route we chose was from Kukke Subramanya to KumaraParvatha. Looks like there is a also a different route via somwarpet and is a bit easy to trek. Few people start from somwarpet reach kumaraparvatha and camp there, and then start to kukke on the next day, essentially covering both the routes. But we started from Kukke, since it looked like the most beaten track with very little opportunity to get lost.

Day 1

6.00AM to 10.00AM - Preparing for the trek - Woke up at 5.00AM to see the train cutting through the western ghats in full moon light, with the valleys resembling a sea of clouds. Beautiful sight indeed. Reached "Subrahmanya road (SBHR)" railway station, wasted no time in hiring a taxi and soon we were in Kukke. And this place was busy, and finding a lodge to just take bath and get ready turned out to be a tough task. Finally had to settle down for a home stay. Spend some time getting ready, finished breakfast and then it was only after 10.00AM we started the trek.

10.00AM to 2.00PM - Trek through the rain forest - A right turn just before the temple takes us to the tar road that leads us to the trekking path. Spent a little time equipping ourselves against the leeches which seemed to be in abundance. The real trek started with a steep climb in a rain forest. It was fun trekking in the rain forest. Since it was just after monsoon, could see the bark of tree covered in green by algae or whatever it is. The difficult part was climbing. Though the hunter shoes bought from Russel market, Bangalore broke the leech attacks, it started causing more damages than the leeches. I slowed down a bit. After around three hours of trek in the forest, we reach the grass lands. A beautiful place offering too many scenic views, but the time was wrong. We entered the grasslands after 1.00PM and it was terribly hot. It makes sense to start the trek early and cross this grassland well before afternoon. At 1PM walking in the scorching sun was nowhere near enjoyment.

2.00PM to 5.30PM - Bhattar's Mane to Mantapa - To our relief reached Bhattar's Mane and it was time for some rest. Didn't have food since we wanted to reduce the weight on our bags. The trek started after a short lunch. Few 100 metres from Bhattar Mane, is the forest checkpost where we have to pay the entry fee. Looks like the entry fee has been increased to 200 per head. We continued our trek through the grasslands with the highest peak at distance in sight. Few people returning, warned us the KumaraParvatha/Pushpagiri is not the one that is visible but will have to trek beyond that. Also the peak that is visible is not as easy as it appears. We crossed peak after peaks, the highest visible peak looked near but there were still few small peaks to cross. As it approached dusk, the clouds started settling, and it was awesome, for we were walking above the clouds on the lush green grasslands. The trek was fun. I loved this part with the mists brushing our face, green grasslands all around and clouds beneath us. We were at the pint which was visible from the Kukke temple. Beyond this, we could see a rocky mountain, which needs to be crossed to reach Pushpagiri.

6.00PM - 7.30PM - Lost in the forest and crawl in the dark t highest point in South India - Think we relaxed a little too much. The HP gang took the lead with the task of setting up the tents in the next flat land. We continued after a short rest engulfed in mist, the HP gang was nowhere in sight. Rakesh, Chandra and myself, walked slowly. It was alalmost dark and interestingly there was a small forest in front of us. Time for fun!!!! Trekking in forest in dark would be foolish, staying there with just sleeping bags would be equally foolish too, since the tents were with HP gang. Used our intelligence to choose a less foolish decision and entered the forest. Had also read in a blog that to reach pushpagiri, you need to cross a forest and climb a small slippery hillock, so was a little sure that we are on the right track. The forest was pitch dark, fortunately had few torches. The torch showed us the way, but at no point we were sure whether that was the only way.

Aim was not to panic. Imagine a thick rain forest, full darkness, no people around and occasional sounds of rustling leaves, howling wind, remote sound of water. Believe me, it did cause a little fear. But we marched on, and a little later we were welcomed by remote shouts from our friends. Sai was shouting my name on top of his voice. Poor fellow, he looked a little frightened. I did relish the fact we had just had a night trek in a rain forest. Dont think i would get a chance to do it in future. This was followed by a steep ascent on the slippery hill, where a small stream down. With just few torches and no clear way, we crawled to the top. We had reached the second highest point in Karnataka.

Wasted, no time in setting up the tents. Generous Rakesh had donated a few units of blood to leeches. Everyone was too tired to check anything, and dozed off asap.

Day 2

3.00AM to 7.30AM - Sunrise - Woke up at 3.00AM the next day. Mohan from HP was hungry and his noise had woken up half of the group. With not much left to do, laid idle till 4.00AM and then ventured out after that. It was bright outside due to the moonlight and spent a little time outside enjoying the chillness of western ghats, waiting for the sunshine. The expectation was that sun would rise majestically above a sea of clouds. What we got was disappointment, as Sun decided to play hide and seek with the help of mist & fog. Not a great sight after a strenuous 14KM trek.

7.30AM to 12.30PM - Pushpagiri to Bhattar's Mane - Started the trek back at 7.30AM. Soon we saw the path we had trekked/crawled in the dark. At times ignorance is bliss. We had climbed a narrow, slippery hill where miscalculated step could have taken us direct to heavens. The rain forest was thick, it is still surprising to see that we had crossed it in pitch dark. Anyway the initial trek was fast and with occasional pit stops, reached Bhattar's Mane a little faster. Had a sumptuous lunch which i finished with six cups of buttermilk and started the trek back through rain forest.

1.30PM to 4.30PM - In Rainy rain forest - The hunter shoe i bought for trekking and preventing leeches was causing more damage than the leeches. Had to slow down and i had Rakesh for company. We walked slowly through the last 2KM in the rain forest.  Every step ached at 6 or 7 points in each feet. Woodlands would have done a better job. I walked like a tortoise. How a trek in rain forest would be in heavy rain ? We were shown that as the heavens opened up. Yet another amazing experience!!!! It was surprising to see that it took around 15 minutes after start of rain for the few drops to reach us. The trees leaves were acting like umbrella till then. We continued walking slowly through the rain forest enjoying the rain. It was yet another wonderful experience.

End of 28KM trek - Soon the rain stopped, and we had also reached the end. Our gang was waiting for us. Looks like they reached around an hour before us. Anyway, we had completed the 28KM trek, trek to the highest point in South India successfully. What about leech attack ? Fortunately i didn't suffer any during the trek, but at the end of the trek, discovered a leech sucking blood near my ears. I hate leeches. Checked into a hotel and had plans of visiting the river for a cool bath. But rains forced us for a rest which we did with full acceptance.

KumaraParvatha turned out to be most satisfactory, interesting and adventurous trek. The gang as usual was rocking!!!! The gang - Rakesh, Chandra from my company. Sai, Mohan, Anoop & Mahesh Kinni from HP.

Photos at - https://picasaweb.google.com/sskganesan/KumaraParvatha.

The Broken Rules

The bus was inching closer towards the destination, taking me away from my Home after a well spent 5 day vacation. I sat there in the last seat, my favorite one, staring blankly at the road, mind clogged with memories. The last seat, the seat where family people and ladies try to avoid, the seat where usually people don't come and ask you to change to another one so that they can sit with their spouse/fiance/lover. The last seat, the seat of the singles. The bus had halted at a stop. An Activa on the other lane caught my attention. The right indicator was blinking and buzzing and he was moving intelligently towards the left for reason known only to him. BAM. The van driver efforts went in vain, and the guys in bike were on the ground in pain. Fortunately, both the vehicles were slow, and could see that there were no serious damage.

Time for drama!!! An onlooker decided to play the role ofjudge and was questioning the van driver and was giving free session on traffic rules. The van guy was furious, he could have landed behind bars for no fault from his side. We have some weird rules, out of syllabus but very much in practice. If a two wheeler decides to commit suicide by jumping from nowhere, the guy in the four wheeler will be held accountable, even though the car is just parked on the left most side of the road possible. Thankfully the Activa guy accepted it was his mistake and apologized.

Anyway watching all these, i felt like a god (you can imagine a yellow animated ring on top of the head). I had saved atleast three people who wanted to commit suicide in front of my car on three different occassions during the five day vacation. Pure luck. Driving in Madurai had become a challenging and stressful task indeed. It is still hard to believe the rate which traffic in Madurai has grown over the past four years. People who were satisfied with just a two wheeler for the family, now have a bike for the son, scooty for the daughter, activa for the parents and a car for the family. Great!!! No issues, but the traffic sense has been the tortoise slowly inching towards the destination.

So now we have two wheelers drawing Rangoli on road, share autos who sincerely maintain just an inch gap between you and your vehicles, driving in car has never been peaceful like the bike. The rule seems to be simple, keep moving forward and if there is an obstruction move to the left or right without watching the rear view mirror.

With luck in favour of me, managing to drive without action and adventures. While i enjoy each and every bike ride even in traffic, with car it has just been the reverse. You also get the additional responsibility of protecting morons on road. Patience has grown a bit, as i continue to imagine the idiot in front as responsible parent or a studious son or a loving husband or a lover boy running to his little girl, and try not to get tensed by the way they drive. And the learning process seem to continue endlessly.

After four years

Woken up by the cold weather, I stared at my watch. 5.45am it was. joined my cousin standing near the door. the railway track cut through numerous buildings on both sides and the city looked peaceful. Was not sure how long I will have to stay in the city, but heart ran back to my home town, the only place I knew, the place where I had left all my friends the last night, the place where I head spent all my 21 years.

I had entered bangalore, the it hub of the nation. My life was no exception from the the usual indian life. Had dutifully studied till then, completed my bachelors, got job offer and I was all set to get settled. I had chosen hp over tcs among the two offers I had, and thats the reason I was here. All this happened 4 years before. While the ultra modern cosmopolitan city attracted on one side, a peaceful life looked like a remote possibility. Money was the master and also the least respected stuff. Brigade road, mg road, malls and multiplexes attracted for a while. Soon I found ways to lead my life, in the way I preferred.

More college friends joined, met a few more good people @ work. Life had returned back to normal. Few trips made it more interesting. Life in hp too was great. Nothing to complain except for the traffic, started liking the city. Few things remained unclear, like why gals who look so rich remained misers when it came to their dresses and roamed around the streets with very little clothes to cover them. Anyway not our concern, so life moved on. Juniors joined, few friends left for ms, few seniors got married, but I had got used to bangalore. The climate made me cling to the city. The city and the people continue to rock.

First job change after three years. moved out of hp where I was very comfortable. few good people around made life easier. No strong reason to move out except to explore the outside world. I moved. So I am here after four good years. I rarely talk about the present job. There are few things to be
happy about the current job. Few things proved that I am still a kindergarten in the school of life. Few troubled me. Whatever it is life continues and continues to amaze me.

If the post looked long and boring, blame BESCOM, for cutting power in the middle of the night, leaving me with no other option.