Ode to my place or worship

Like every year, this year too I did attend ayudha pooja at my gym. Though I haven;t been to the gym in a week and half, I was down with fever for 3.5 days and doctor advised me not to workout. So i temporarily stopped, after two weeks, I will re-join on Monday.

All these days I got an opportunity to wake up late and ponder.

So cheers to my place of worship.

Cheers,

When a late train helped our cause - TTTT 61

Last month I had been to a trek around Karnataka Goa border. It was one of the best. But in the end we reached a remote village in Karnataka and were about to leave by 6pm from there. We had our train at around 9 40 pm from Dharwad. It was Sampark Kranti coming all the way from Chandigarh.

We were around 100 kilometers away from Dharwad and we were in doubt whether we could reach in time.  We reached Dharwad railway station at 9 40 pm and we were about to miss the train.

But luck was on our side that day. Because the train was running late by 40 minutes. We had earlier information from the railway website that train would be late, but was that information accurate?

Well turned out to be true,

Cheers,

When we cut and ate jackfruit on a trek - TTTT 60

Jack fruit is one such fruit which you do not want to get your hands dirty with. Its difficult to digest unless you are used to it. But to get to the point where you get to eat a jack fruit you need to slog your hands of cutting and peeling the huge fruit.

This happened during our recent trek around Karnataka Goa border. We entered a village on our first day, we were too late to move out of the village. Hence thought of camping in the village.

It was 5 pm in the evening when we reached the village. Very soon it would turn dark. Few of our guys were resting, while our two guides were doing something very interesting outside.

They had brought down a jack fruit from a tree opposite to the house and they were cutting and peeling it. After 10 minutes, I too joined in. It was a sticky mess peeling the jack fruit.

In the end I ate 12 or even more pieces of jack fruit. I cleaned my hands which were now sticky by rubbing palms with oil. But I was cursing myself for eating so much of jack fruit. Jack fruit is one such fruit which is very hard to digest.

The guide made fun of me for fearing the unknown. In the end I was glad I did not throw up in the night nor had a problem in the morning.

Alls well that end's well..

Cheers!

When my client / business partner thought I knew German!!

For two weeks we have our German business partner in India. They arrived last week and came to office on Monday. For the first day they sat in a meeting room towards the end of the floor. But on the second day they came and sat next to me as there were empty spaces next to my seat.

Not sure why they decided to sit amidst the team instead of meeting room, but yesterday while on Friday, on two occasions the business partner started speaking amongst themselves in German, I was quietly observing and on one occasion they were conversing in German trying to find out where was the dustbin, for which I directed them out of intuition.

They then got a doubt if I understood German.. I had previously told one of my German colleague that it was my 4th time working with German client. And as much as I like working with them, I hate to admit I do not know German.

How about learning the same.. Well, yeah probably will give it a thought!

Cheers,

Relief from work

After working hard starting january february all the way till mid of june, braving summer going to the gym office resting on weekends, I found some time finally to head out of town. It was for a 3 day trek on the eve of Ramzan.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions, though we traveled by train, we ended up doing a whole lot of trek and thoroughly enjoyed the 3 days.

I will write about it shortly. Also I need to cross 50 posts since its half year mark. Last year I consciously decided not to hit a 100 posts, because someone who always insisted me to write 100 posts was a bit down after losing their pet dog. Hence last year I chose not to write a 100 owing to this reason.

Cheers!

Sins of joining a service oriented organization - part 2

It happens so I joined an IT service organization in the year 2017. It was my first in-house project. I have worked for service oriented IT companies before, but as a consultant. I was outsourced rather sent outside to a client place to work. In other words, I was working and have worked for a product development organization all these years.

Now it happens so, this in-house project made me realize what a notorious shit hole an IT service company is. Full of quacks, people with no heart, no interest to work, roaming in the building carelessly.

Sad to see, when I enter global village IT park to go to my office, or during lunch, I see hoards of people just sitting, doing absolutely nothing, chit chatting. I wish not to mention which organization, but it happens to be one of the other competitor service oriented organizations in Global Village known for hire and fire policy. So many people simple sitting, doing nothing just speaks of the amount of work being given to Indian IT.

Never mind, I had worked very hard over the last 6 months, written lots of code and established such a fine working relationship with my German Colleagues, I'm still proud of that. But the sad part is some of my allocated task couldn't meet timeline.

Some of the allocated task of my team members didn't meet timelines. It had lots of loopholes and complaints, escalations from German management. So my manager considered this.

When I told him I had got equally good appreciation, he told they don't count. Only escalations count but not appreciation. In english language its called hypocrisy!

So, all my hard work went to gutter and got a rating of 2/5. It means moderately meets expectations, or rather needs improvement. Any person who gets this rating never gets variable pay or bonus. But I got them. I got my variable pay 100% of what the company allocated out of the given amount. What an irony.

On one side, I need improvement, on other side, I get a bonus reserved for performance. I guess this happens only in a service oriented organization.

The best part is I still enjoy working with Germans, I think, the only reason for me to stick with my current service oriented organization, is the fact that, we have a very good relationship with onsite team and equally bad relationship with our offshore team plus its close to my home.

5 members of my team have quit. All of whom had problem with Indian management and not a single complaint against German management.

I think service oriented organization works just like this.

What I feel is mid level management is like a mid layer fat on a human body (result of Bengal famine?)

Muscles at the shoulder or biceps help us to lift loads, muscles on legs and thighs help us propel or walk long distances. But mid level fat does absolutely nothing, helps us to sustain famine situation?

So mid level management is like this fat, absolutely unuseful for an organization. Just adding complexities to our working environment.

Oh I forgot to tell you, my organization management is very jealous of the fact that I'm too close with German's sitting over here and they aren't able to achieve the same level of closeness. How little they know its all about hardwork and intellectualism.

Somone please tell them, quacks can only quack!

Cheers,!

PS - I wanted to write this for a very long time, but exercised restraint and lack of time. Today I'm in good spirits :)-

Back to travel and blogging

After outworking myself in the last 4 months, I finally found time to travel, write something. I was regular to the gym in the last 4 months something which makes me feel proud.

A forest fire in Kerala Border put an end to our summer trekking plans. I feel bad that tragedy happened, lives were lost. Permissions were denied owing to the fact there could be more forest fires.

So I dug into gym and work. Things did not go well at work as well. I was overloaded with work and in the end I got an appraisal rating of 2/5 which means moderately meets expectations.

It really broke my back. I had worked hard over the last year and this is what I got. I realized this is how I pay the price for joining a service oriented organization I thought.

Then there was an opening, in the form of a 3 day trek. With much difficulty permissions were obtained, in-fact, over 3 month effort yielded permissions. This 3 day trek was to an unknown place. It was in the rains and it went well.

That brought me enough courage to make a comeback to writing!

Cheers,

Over read myself in 2018

Started the year's reading with a book called Mindful way through depression. Believe me it was the worst nightmare I could have, it took me a month and a half to realize that, this book was utter gutter crap.

It wasn't the way out of depression, but it tried its best to put me into depression. I couldn't read for days together because I was so hell bent on reading this book completely, and this book was so adamant that it didn't want to be read.

Finally, I gave it up for some good old Ruskin Bond and there you go, problem solved. As of today in the fourth month, I have read almost 9 books for the year, much have been Ruskin Bond to give me that feel good factor of the mountains (of course).

But all in all way to go.. wohoo.. pat on my back, considering how hard I work these days :)

Cheers,

CommonWealth games at the gym

Yesterday had been to the gym and found TV to be airing common wealth games instead of music, which usually is on. So whist exercising, I could watch a game of squash. Once the game was over, somehow it being an Indian channel, provided an update on the gold medal being won by India.

But the intense competition which I got to see during the squash match put me into a bit of thought process.

- What do these players bring to the competition.
- What all do these players have to endure to gain this level of competitiveness.

The answer was simple. Plain old practice for years together. If this was the simple and straight answer, there was a lingering question, as to why aren't we producing enough gold medals in a bigger stage like Olympics? I have always realized the reason to be a compound of many a thing.

I generally do not whine on my blog on problems which have no profound solution at all. But the way the whole eco system is structured, it just has no solution at all :)

The rewards for a professional athlete are very much there, but is the infrastructure in place, if someone wanted to compete in swimming, do we have enough to go to a swimming pool everyday, day in and day out, does Bangalore traffic allow us to focus only on swimming.

Recently, saw a video on Dravid Padukone, sports village. Heard few words of encouragement from Rahul Dravid to come and make use of the facility to one and all.

I just had one question, how does someone sitting in Kengeri, make use of this facility? For someone to reach this place it would take a while, and the way professional athletes train is each day for hours. So for someone to train idealistically, he or she should relocate closer to home, forget family, forget study, basically forget everything and this after investing in the membership.

Why would anyone do that, one life is meant to be enjoyed, why would anyone put his body on the line just for a medal and few quid  money in return that too not guaranteed?

I  still somehow wonder, Hyderabad has produced so many good shuttlers, I sincerely feel there is something about Hyderabad infrastructure playing a part too. Going by Bangalore's growth, I can only see round and pot bellied people adding weight on mother earth rather than muscular Olympians battling it out with someone like Micheal Phelps?

I am sure 20 years on we still would be medal less :) And regarding common wealth games, yeah cheers guys.

I wish all those who have access to equipment stadiums and will to fight it out, all the very best. I can only settle for my mediocre rant :)

Cheers,

A day without gym - Sunday

I get to write again. These days, I have nothing to write or rather, I do not find time. I have topics in my mind, but they just fade away, reason being, work, exercise takes a back seat. I haven't played my PS 4 in a while. I was supposed to complete GTA 5, but I am stuck in the game and with so much work, it has taken a back seat.

Moreover when I sit to write something, I think of social network sites, browse for songs, check mails, check others' blog etc etc and I fail to write, reason being distraction.

Now I turned off the music, turned off my official laptop, cannot concentrate on office work for the day, switched off social media sites, and here I am only to write something.

Tomorrow being rest day, I could wake up with no qualms about exercising. The thing is I have gained weight in the last 3 months, though people say it doesn't look much, I got a mouthful of words from my gym trainer as its anti to what I used to do.

I am supposed to control what I eat and therefore yet again, I am back to where it all began. Work at office too happens to be dull, with more people being released from account/project, what can you do? If there is no work obviously people are going to be let go. There is no such thing as free lunch.

But I'm happy no exercise tomorrow, plain rest! I get to work, get to do somethings at leisure.

Cheers,

Sins of joining a service based organization (offshoring)

One thing straight, after joining my current organization, I have spent multiple weekends working.

Even as I write this, I am writing source code on the side.

There are many reasons as to why I work on weekends. What do I do during weekdays?

- Meetings/management meetings.
- Giving daily status to the dumb indian management (aka Micromanagement, which team member of mine spent how much time on what, what time did they go to loo out of office etc etc).
- Answering queries of team members, reviewing their work.
- Taking part in meetings with Europeans, can run into hours sometimes.
- Infrastructure issues.

Given all of the above, I hardly get time to do technical work. Considering that I am more experienced than most of my team members, I am supposed to do the most complicated work, like most difficult work. Whilst most people stop coding after say 5 years, I am coding even after 10 years, and I love it.

But what I don't love is the fact that I get less time to do what I love to do, instead attend Indian management meetings on how to improve process via Agile.

Well, each time, I get to ask myself is it really needed. Need of the hour is to improve skillset of Indian people to tackle technical problems, instead our Indian management seems to be taking interest in Agile to hide their arses :).

Reason being our Indian management understands, no matter how much you invest in training, Indian engineers won't scale up to the European standards / expectations, not sure which river water is the source of their lacking interest, but its straight as an arrow, Indian people lack interest to do anything technical atleast in my current organization. (sorry for stereotyping)

So, to do tough technical work, I need more time to concentrate and that never happens at workplace. The overcrowded floor where most people are on bench and jaywalking, never allows me to concentrate.

Whilst I do manage to work peacefully for sometime, to ensure more productivity, I need to work a bit more and this can happen only during weekends. So whenever there is tough work to be done, I rely on weekends, and also I am planning to take leave tomorrow.

My German architect shall go on leave from wednesday and I need to check in some very important code and get it reviewed before he leaves. All this I cannot expect to happen in that noisy workplace.

So tomorrow I am absconding from office to work :)

Cheers,

PS - I don't get to read as often now, play on my PS4 - travelling is less. All this until I find a new job, or until some people in the team get laid off due to budget cut. (sorry for early prediction, but can't help a lingering team in any other way :))

I am not boasting about myself doing hard techical work, but, I'm just trying to tell you my current situation!

Growing up in the 90's, growing up with ROXETTE

As a kid who grew up in the 90's, I could identify one band distinctively apart from Eagles and MLTR or U2. It was Roxette. The song - she's got the look was being used in the reynolds pen advertisement, if I'm not wrong.

I was always wondering which band sung it. Years later when internet became accessible and radio play was much more fun with all those good songs, less ads, I got to listen to Roxette a bit more and I believe, they are amongst the best. Its sad I didn't get to listen them more as a kid in the 90's

The lead singer had to go through a difficult period but yeah, they have left us a legacy of great songs. One of which is as below :)

Trekking on a empty stomach - TTTT 59

I have trekked few places in the last few years, but each time I was atleast fed, well fed infact before the start of the trek or even through the trek. Generally on a two day trek if we are camping in the forest, we carry sufficient rice to feed us for a night's dinner plus day 2 breakfast and/or lunch.

So this time, too was no different, we were in the middle of the forest out camping, and we cooked day 1 dinner. But the thing is, instead of bringing in aluminium cooking vessel, we had taken a pressure cooker this time.

This caused a hinderance in cooking. If we had taken aluminium vessel, we could have cooked lots of rice for dinner and left over could have been consumed as breakfast. But instead it took 2 turns too cook up rice for 12 people using a pressure cooker, plus, this meant the next day we had insufficient time to cook, as we had a good 8 km trek to and fro to the waterfall plus a 6 km trek back to the mainland.

Next day morning we prepared tea in the middle of the forest with full milk and tea power and water. And we set off for the waterfall. And we reached the waterfall after around 3 hours and we were back to tbe camping place by around 4pm. So we again ran out of time as we had to reach mainland out of the forest before it could be dark, hence thought of not cooking at all.

Meanwhile we had consumed whatever biscuits we had chocolates etc etc. I had consumed a packet full of electral and still was losing salts and getting cramped like there was no tomorrow. This left me with only one option to drink a litre of water filled with table salt!

Yes, I could never drink water mixed with salt before, but this time body just took it. And by the way, my cramps vanished 20 minutes later, I could trek the remining 6 kilometers pretty much comfortably.

We made it to out of the forest by 7pm and made it to Hotel Kamat Honnavara by 8 15PM. Finished dinner and started to bangalore by 9 30 pm.

Thats how I trekked this time , with almost an empty stomach :)

Cheers,

A constant companion or friend who never vanishes.

You might be wondering a man's best companion is a dog, one who never vanishes. But not everyone is fortunate enough to own a dog, train a dog or sustain a dog. I have never been able to have a dog.

But I would like to tell that, man's best companion rather my best companion is the gym. Its because whether it is a good day or bad day or a normal day, I get there and it basically feels good. The gym never vanishes nor the trainer refuses to admit me :) (Yeah even without fees)

If I'm high on ego the gym flattens it up, if I'm low on morale, it just ups my morale. Moreover, meeting people from different background, where salary, pride, age takes social status takes a backseat, all that matters is a 1+ hour of workout session.

Its sad to say, Bangalore doesn't have rather the infrastructure to support a good exercise regime or routine, or rather I do not have enough guts to sustain it.

I started exercising seriously only when my company provided time and transport. Tomorrow, I might not have them, so I'm still wary of changing organizations just to sustain this routine.Going far, might leave me with less time to exercise.

But discovering my love for physical exercise has been the most joyous thing to have happened to me. Not sure this post made any sense, but atleast it got me back to writing after weeks together of drudgery at office, having to deal with Indian, European management, etc etc, plus technical work, coding, re-coding. Lots of things happened, but now got the time to write.

So cheers :) 

Genius of David Gray

David Gray is one such artist whom I have known since my teenage years. I have not heard enough of him for years. And now when I realize he has belted out some super songs, I only can curse my luck for not having paid attention to his music.

The bottom line is any artist from England, Ireland, Scotland should be taken seriously, I mean by me, else I miss out on loads of good music.

Imagine David Gray music playing on a silent night. There is full silence and there you have David Gray and a pinch of spiritualism. what more can you ask for ?

I have few favorite songs from his album White Ladder way back almost 20 years, but this one which I am sharing is from 2002- 2003 album. Years go by but David Gray music still remains ahead of its time. Technology may come and but it will always be short of the talent this man possess. (Wrong comparison :))

PS - to enjoy some of the songs, you need good woofers plus clear cut speakers. To appreciate drums, bass, those acoustic guitar chords, I guess, after all you need good sound system and tuned equalizers, Please do not tune disco to alternative rock songs :) You know what I mean. To register sound from each instrument individually, into our ears and mind, you need a good sound system.Period.

Some pictures from my yesterday's trek - Republic day trek - 2018

Some pictures from my trek, courtesy Ucchangi Ram Kumar

Return journeys from a Trek - TTTT 58

Return journeys after completing a trek are always fun and excellent. The sense of accomplishment, for finishing the trek, the solo time we get to unwind, watching the villages and towns pass by and the freedom to eat till stomach's fill because we have burnt sufficient calories during the trek, plus good music all ends up as a fun filled journey. I wish to put these lines in a poem but some other day.

This time too the trek was excellent. We came out of the forest only by 7 PM evening and it was all dark, and by the time we made our way to Honnavara for dinner it was 8 15 PM odd. Then it was all climb to Sagar and then Shimoga. We had our dinner at Kamat restaurant at Honnavara. I simply love the coastal towns of Honnavara, Kumta, these places have the best to offer, in terms of simplicity of food, the service, the showcase of humanity just stands up.

It was relaxing, there was no movie being played, everyone was relaxed after completing the trek, were chatting, talking about random stuffs. But it was the first time, I saw 2-3 accidents on Jog falls climb, Ghat section. I pray nobody was hurt because of these. I had seen one before multiple times, but this day there were multiple on the same stretch, sad.

There was a village festival kind of thing near Mavinagundi, full bling bling and lights. Its hard to see such a controlled festival, never happens in town. In town all you get is honking vehicles, huge number of people / crowd and everyone trying to show off their wealth or who come to market their products. The question of enjoyment and fulfillment in a city fair is far from reality. But over here in a village, just a look by me while passing was so fulfilling. All I could do is sit in a vehicle and dream of being a part of the fair.. why not :) ?

We started from Honnavara at 9 40 PM and reached Bangalore around 5 15 AM.  Thats way too quick a time, because we have Jog falls Ghat section to climb and then its all way single lane road and not NH4.

These days I do not write about the places which I trek nor post many pictures. I can, but I do not want publicity via a search engine. I prefer to keep things to myself :)

This post was more about the fun filled return journey from the coastal side.

Cheers,

PS - This time we had a Tempo traveller with a CR Engine. Very rarely we get CR engine TT, but yeah, considerably less noisy than the Euro 3 Turbo Engine Traveller.

Gym - to exercise or to market goods

A recent trend in the gym has been to market stuffs. Gym is a place where people gather, come or are easy to pick and find. So a marketeer or a sales person has a good chance over here.

It happened so, recently someone tried to sell a motivational course to me in the gym which is part of a foreign company. This person happens to be from sales background and wanted more and more people to enroll into this course and hence had organized an introduction session at his home. Looks like he has taken a contract from this organization.

He wanted me to join and told me the leader would identify an area in my life to create opportunity. I told him I wasn't interested as the course was too abstract and not to my liking.

I gave away my mobile number and this person started calling and sending messages on whatsapp. After certain point of time, I put my phone on aeroplane mode and stopped replying to his whatsapp messages altogether. (Blocking him is still pending action).

When I went and told this to my gym instructor, he told me the motivational course was costing about 16k and there was a full family of 4 people who took this course and felt cheated.

In a way I got out of this mess, just wondering, how to react when I see the person in the gym in coming days. But what can I do?

My head just can't tolerate this amount of shit, just because a person has worked for Microsoft or Amazon doesn't mean I listen to him speak :) If I need motivation I shall read a good self help book instead of attending a 16k course!

Also he told me, after this course, he opened his own venture without a single rupee of investment. I thought what the heck, if it works out for him doesn't mean it should for me. What a silly and strange logic from an educated person.

Even before joining, I checked out this person's linked in profile and realized it was his job to sell this course to people. I hope and pray more people do not end up paying 16k to such courses, instead find motivation in exercise or travel or reading or music or something else on which this 16k can be invested and not regretted.

I literally told my instructor 16k is my 2 years gym membership.

Cheers,

Crowded house - Dont dream its over

I came to know about this song in the year 2002. That was when I first heard Six pence none the richer singing Dont dream its over. I admired the tune composition etc etc, until I came to know that, its by a band called Crowded House. That was probably in the year 2010 or so.

Until then I wasn't aware of the band Crowded House. My bad. But ever since I listened to the original composition of the song by Crowded House I never went back to Six Pence None The Richer, until today or in fact until 5 minutes back :)

Somehow, the live version performed by Crowded House popped anup in my playlist whilst at office. I somehow ended up listening to the song, but, more than that, the trivia surrounding the song was awesome.

That song was the last song played on their farewell tour after which the band disbanded. The emotions on the faces of the band members are visibily noticeable.

There are people who enact and make the audience teary eyed and here are the band Crowded House who are making the audience teary eyed, live, as they perform and sing..

This song is from 1996 Farewell Tour. I sincerely wished some people remained together, just for the sake of music, just for the sake of mankind.  but nature has other plans and life moves on. Here goes the song by Crowded House. Brilliantly sung and performed live.

And regarding the song by Six pence none the richer, well, its kind of feels pretty ordinary when you have the original next to it :)

Just brought back loads of memories, what I was upto in 1986 when the song, came out, 1996 when the farewell tour happened, 2002 when the cover version came out, 2010 when I discovered about Crowded House and 2018 as I blog this :) Happy to be alive :) what more can I say

Cheers

Some writing in the new year

After a gap of 15 days odd I am writing. I got time, the mood and the patience today to write. I was super busy with office work with no time to spare. Today we had a sprint closure and I had to do a demo to the client and now thats over, I get some relief for a couple of days, knowing there aren't much things pending to go.

But its been a roller coaster last 5+ months with heavy duty hard work coupled with mistakes and learnings, all in all a fulfilling one, I am unable to play on my PS4 nor read books nor travel much. Its just about work and more work for now.

Meanwhile, I shall write about few things which I have in my mind,

But for now,
Cheers,

PS - Today's demo went well, though I ran from an old source code and flunked it mid way, the response was appreciative and pretty positive :) 

First post for the new year

How sweet of me to key in something on the first day of the year itself. Side by side, I am writing some source code trying to fix an issue in the application.

And I hope I get to check in something today. The entire German and Indian team are vacationing. Me checking in on 1 day of 2018 all alone shall be epic. By the way last week of december had only my check ins in the source code repository, but doing one on 1st seems even more epic.

Meanwhile I compile the source code, thought of putting up a post.

This year I plan to do something different. I feel I am nosing around others people's business way too much. I keep asking people questions, I try to be curious about what is happening and in a way I think, I am just putting too much of info into my brains, which isn't really required.

My main motive should be, what others do is none of my business and I would rather try to implement it 100% :)-

Also last year I probably got less angry once I changed organizations. Silkboard never played any part and hence I had no burden to cross over 44 road humps. So I got angry only once in the last 7 months or so. I get frustrated and offended easily, but that's not much of a major hurdle.

Cheers.

Billy Idol - Rebel yell

Nice screaming song to welcome the new year - Billy Idol - Rebel Yell.

Cannot believe this song is from 1983, decades ahead of its time. 

Phenomenal stuffs from Billy Idol..

Cheers,

10 year anniversary

As the year comes to a close, I did forget to mention one point all through the year.

Yes, its been 10 years since I started blogging. I wish I had started early, at least I could have got in more posts plus and I would have been much better at writing and communicating.

But it is what it is. So happy 10th year to my blog. It is so much fun to write whatever I want, considering only max 5-6 people know this blog url. Rest all are random hits from google!

In the last 10 years life has changed, and believe me, I haven't written about most of it. I just have written about stuffs which I felt like writing. There were days when I was extremely happy and days when I was extremely upset. None of which figure on this blog. But yeah, I wish to continue writing. Some day, I shall have a small diary which shall have stories inspired by my experiences or travel with fictitious characters and real ones, inspired by none other than Ruskin Bond,. Until then,. this blog shall have short posts of mine!

Cheers,

Bhujia hill

During our Gujarat trip, we got to visit Bhuj and at a distance from Bhuj was a small hill called Bhujia hill. Our time of visit was perfect. Though we missed out the evening sunset, we were very much in for a surprise.

It was a quiet place with absolutely no visitors in the evening. There were 3-4 temples and one temple at the top of the hill. So we had a little bit of climb, I wish I had come to this place alone.

Its the solitude which beckoned the most. Being all one in the quiet place like Bhujia hill can work wonders. The town was below and over here on the hill it was a temple and wind wind all the way.

I am so happy for our culture where in people have buiilt up temples on hill tops. It feels so relaxing just to climb the hill and take a moment of to admire the nature which god has created and to find a temple and place to pray atop a hill can be just priceless.

Cheers, below are some pictures.

Year ending 2017

One more year comes to a close, this year I decided not to complete my 100 posts instead let it as it is. Also one thing I did this year end, which I haven't done till date.

Yes, I did something today. I donated blood today at KIMS. Today while in the gym, our instructor asked me, if I was ready to donate blood.

Initially I was hesitant, since I generally donate on a ad-hoc basis and on demand. After few minutes, he told his relative was in need of platelets. Then I started considering it more seriously.

I told him I was ready to donate and asked for the contact number. He told he would drive along with me and other guy who was willing to donate. So I did donate today and it felt good.

Being of some use to someone and a very nice way to say good bye to 2017.

Cheers,

I think it was a very small token of gratitude for someone who has been very instrumental in me completing my 4 Himalayan treks and to the person who I am today compared to who I was in 2013.

When temperature dipped to 13 degree centigrade during our bus journey - TTTT 57

Yes you read it right, the temperature dipped to 13 degree centigrade and we were not travelling in a Volvo AC bus. We were travelling in a normal state transport bus.

It happened so, we took a quick decision to travel from Mandvi Gujarat to Dwaraka Gujarat, by an overnight bus. So caught a bus to Jamnagar from Mandvi. And from there, we planed to travel by another bus.

It happened so, we were supposed to reach around  6am to Jamnagar bus somewhere around 3 am in the morning, it turned out to be freezing cold. O boy, we were just covered up, but it was so cold that, we couldn't add more clothing to ourselves as our backpacks were all stashed away in the upper compartment and we were too lazy to unpack and wear them.

So we managed the journey, we ended up in Jamnagar early in the morning. But upon reaching my friend who had just measured the overnight temperature told me, it had stooped down to a whooping 13 degree centigrade. Can you believe it ?

It was a fun ride, and believe me, things like these just end up being so memorable!

Temperatures had gone down to -7 degrees whilst in the Himalayas, but this ain't mountains, this was plain old city to city ride!

Cheers,

An ode to the warm up man - Gym stories

Let me classify my gym posts as gym stories, just like my travel stories.

I have been going to the gym pretty regularly. So I get to see a whole bunch of people daily. Since the last 7 odd days I have a stiff muscle, starting from my lower back all the way to the left leg. I feel I'm unable to stretch it freely nor able to bend myself and touch the ground as much as I want to.

So today, I got a bit of stretching exercises at the gym and guess whom it reminded me of? The warm up man. The warm up man, was one special person coming to the gym. He's  no more seen in the last 5 odd months. I shall tell you about that later.

He was one person who used to do warm up and stretch for round about 25 minutes. I used to complete my treadmill run and this person would still be stretching and stretching. I think I have not seen anybody do that much amount of warm up exercises and stretching. He looked like a trained athlete and seasoned professional, and could not be compared to anybody else in the gym.

Last I heard he underwent a surgery of some kind and was advised not to exercise. He was one person who was regular since the day I joined the gym way back in December 2013.

Such is life, so there goes an ode to the warm up man. Warm up and stretching is an essential part before we exercise. I under do it and I bare the outcome in the form of stiff muscles, sore legs, sore back. Some day I shall remember to stretch and warm up adequately before work out.

Until then cheers,

Music for 2017 - Fleetwood Mac .

Well, this year I listened to loads of songs, either on the way to office or at work or at home. I even upgraded my speaker to one with woofer. So now I have a better sound system.

But this year can be characterized by my inclination to one such band which I feel is the most underrated. I have spent almost 3/4 of the year listening to their songs only and I am still not bored and probably will never be. The irony is most of their best work came out when I was a kid and when there was no satellite television in India.

The band I am talking about is Fleetwood Mac, some of their songs were way ahead of time. The tune the composure. They wrote more about romance and love, thats their genre. But if you ever get to see them performing live, believe me, its a bliss.

The band has got loads of history, its just that they are underrated. Listen to two of their masterpieces below. One being my all time favorite - Gypsy (1982) and the other one, - Everywhere. (1987). Now you can understand my love for the 1980's. The decade when some super music just came out and rest is history!

below is the live performance.. can it get any better?

And Christine McVie at 74 years of age...can produce a masterpiece like the one below..

BSNL and dismal internet performance

This year, I badly needed internet to perform, because, I was loaded with work, I needed to work from home and I needed internet which was reliable. BSNL this year was a let down. There was an instance where there was no internet for 1.5 weeks flat. This annoyed me to the core.

I was waiting for a chance to switch to airtel or ACT. Now during Christmas again, internet was unavailable and I thought time was right to raise a request for Airtel broadband. As of today, I'm waiting for Airtel to be installed at my home, payment is through only installation is pending.

So there goes out BSNL, no more crying for a slow internet. Hopefully Airtel shall be much more efficient, here's new internet for the new year. Something to look for! And guess what its optic fiber this time. 40MBPS line.

Cheers,

When we had a sudden encounter with a something special! - TTTT 56

Over the last couple of years, while trekking, I have encountered many creatures, be it reptiles, be it elephant or be it deer or wild boar, but this time something strange encounter happened. It could have been worse but nothing of that sort happened.

Whilst trekking in the western ghats this year, probably in November, we had just started the trek late and mid way through we just had reached the grassland located between two hills. Yes we were in the open between two hills and we had just emerged out of the forests.

While we were admiring nature resting, taking pictures all of a sudden we could spot a swarm of bees headed towards our direction. It was so instantaneous, some members of our group ducked to cover themselves. I thought it was too late to cover myself and just stood my ground watching the bees.

Luckily the bees had some other intention and just flew over. This was my first ever encounter in the open to such large quantities of flying bees. There was no place to hide, no water source, we were all in the open about to be bitten if something had gone wrong, but luckily, we managed to stay clear.

Cheers,

Tattery reading and tattery writing

This year I haven't read much, nor have I written much. They year has just gone and I have only memories of myself overworking. Yes, this year I finally switched jobs to something closer.

I travelled moderate, did not trek the Himalays this year plus I overworked. Yes, the second half of the year was more about heavy duty work, not that I was forced to work rather I enjoyed over working. With such close interaction to German colleagues, even over working was a breeze.

I purchased a PS4 but could not complete GTA 5 in 2.5 months time owing to less time. Same goes with my writing and reading skills both of which are left in a disarray, the main reason being, I'm trying to catch too many birds in one shot.

One thing which remained my constant source of motivation is my desire to exercise, which never came down. I was continuous to the gym and had loads of good time exercising.

Hope I can read something more during the next year, work and contribute even better, travel too.

Cheers,

When Kankaria Zoo, Ahmedabad, left me terribly disappointed - TTTT 55

My visit to Ahmedabad was for a day. During that day too I was very upset after my visit to Kankaria zoo. This zoo appears to be a tourist attraction. But sad part is I was not amused.

There was a zoo which housed caged wild animals. The reason which me sad is because of the poor condition the wild animals were housed in. The lion, tiger, leopard all were housed in a small enclosure which didn't look good either. The gates on the other side opened to a bigger enclave but only one animal could occupy it at a time.

If one could look into the eyes of those wild animals, it sadly reflects the same sadness which you would see when you cage a human being.

The worst part is the zoo is next to roaring traffic. Deer which I have always seen in Bandipur jungles amid silence, in Kudremukha amidst no human habitation, here had to stay listening to blaring and honking vehicles. There was no peace whatsoever to the animals of the zoo.

Sometimes, its just cruel to put animals in cage but putting them in a cage next to traffic main road is nothing short of disaster. I myself could not enjoy my stay at Kankaria zoo, I bet the animals and birds would be having a torrid time over there.

Such is life. Yeah I was a bit teary eyed too.

A bus ride which was about to be missed! - TTTT 54

I had been on a trip to Gujarat this December, first week to be precise. And during this period, in order to save money, we traveled by State Transport buses. But after traveling by State transport buses, my back and butt had taken all the brunt and I was in no mood to travel in those buses.

It was Friday morning and I had finished my visit to the Sri Krishna temple in Dwaraka and I thought of heading back to Ahmedabad same day by doing a day journey.

Mind you I was all by myself. I had a return bus ticket to Bangalore. But Dwaraka to Ahmedabad was still good 439 kilometers in distance. When I enquired there was a bus to Rajkot every hour by Shiv Shakti travels. So I hurriedly packed up and vacated my room and booked a ticket and caught this bus to Rajkot, which was a normal bus just a bit better than the ST bus.

It was almost 1 pm when I got dropped in Rajkot. Rajkot to Ahmedabad was a good 200 kilometers in distance and I was way away from the bus stand. I had infact lost my way trying to find the bus stand. This time, I was bent on not travelling by ST bus as it would be too slow.

Finally I managed to reach Rajkot bus stand carrying all the big back pack huffing and puffing only to find the volvo bus just in a nick of time.

So this was a journey which was about to be missed. Though the volvo bus was costing me double the price, it was well worth the journey back to Ahmedabad.

I made it to Ahmedabad by 8 30 PM and it was almost 12 hour journey, could have been a little lesser, had the bus not halted at Jamnagar for 30 minutes time.

Cheers to Gujarat Darshan.

Favorite drink during beach trek - TTTT 48

This year I completed my 5th beach trek. Yes its been 5 years in a row and people have vowed to black list me for other treks, if I participate in another beach trek!

I have always written about my love for the beaches, but I never have written about my favorite drink during the beach trek.

A beach trek is always under the sun, its humid, we are sweating, we all are losing loads of salt and we need to hydrate. Most of the time I drink water, plus electral, to make up for the lost salts.

But somewhere in the beach trek, we end up joining the main road which leads us to Kumta before we join back the beach, and its over there we get to buy some reinforcement liquids.

After a hard day's walk, I prefer to take Lassi. Yes, in the coastal area, sweetened curd is available in stores in a small packet of Rs 10. Simple and effective solution. Though its got sugar and loads of calories, boy, we would have lost so much that, this one gives the right kick and boost to continue our pending journey, towards the town and then towards Bangalore too.

So, its got to be Lassi. Though this time, I tried out ice cream and also a Jeera based drink. But lassi seems to be a level above the rest!

Cheers.

Best story of Ruskin Bond (as per me)

I have been reading Ruskin Bond for quite some time now, probably two years. Ruskin Bond has written over 500 short stories and I probably have read more than 150. There are plenty of them which I love and adore. But one particular story catches my mind instantly.

Its called - "The Man who was Kipling"  Rudyard Kipling hasn't been a very popular names amongst Indians. Though he wrote masterpieces like Jungle Book, but it isnt that which he is remembered for. But for other works which have rubbed Indians in the wrong way.

This story is a short attempt at justifying Kipling was a great guy, its just that age that made him write stuffs which hasn't gone well with we Indians.

Never mind, what Kipling wrote about, but what Ruskin Bond has written is just a brilliant masterpiece. There are so many stories of his set in the hills which I love and adore, this one, sets standards to another level.

Hats of to you Ruskin bond,

Cheers,

When we started a trek late and ended it late - TTT 52

I have to say this has to be the trek, where we started the most late of all. This trek happened last sometime last month I think, it was somewhere in Sharavathy valley.

It happened so our hired vehicle a Tempo traveller got punctured two times, leaving with no option but to be stranded on the road. So, by the time we reached our trek start point it was around 12 45 in the afternoon and we started the trek at 2 30 PM.

This by far had been the most late. We had previously once started a trek around 11 30 AM and completed it by night 11 PM.

But starting a trek by afternoon 2 30 is nothing but asking for trouble. We walked through the forest in the dark and saw wild boars this time. In the end we made it to the other village via forest and reached our place of halt by night 8 30 PM.

It was a well achieved day, I was very happy, as we had hauled our entire luggage from one place to another and it was total fun.

Cheers,

4 years and counting....

It was exactly 4 years ago, that once incident had made me realize I had to change. I had been on a trip to Gingee Fort in 2013 December and I could not climb the fort easily. I struggled, I sweated it out and I made it

Its been 4 years to that day. One remarkable thing happened after that trip. I took a decision to get fitter. I decided I should be in a position to climb easily.

I had no choice, but to get fitter. I could have waited to join a gym in the new year 2014, instead I chose the last week of December. My organization at that time had working business hours at 11 am to 8 pm and it was located at Electronic City. So I got a fair chance at exercising during the morning hours.

And boy was I glad. Its been 4 years to that day and I still work between 11 am and 8pm but at another organization located nearer to my home. Things are hectic currently but I still exercise in the morning.

I think at some point in time, I just feel gutted that, I did not discover the power of exercising regularly, early in life. These days my job change reveals around the question, can I get enough time to exercise or not. If no, I generally do not attend interview itself :) Also as you get more experienced, the opportunities dry up, owing up to the billing factor and cost per head factor. So in either case, my job switches have become lesser.

So, cheers to exercise.

Connecting my PS4 slim to vintage monitor

I purchased a Sony play station 4 this year after many years of wait. I wanted to play games since almost 15 years and never had gotten the time for it. Now that, I made a concrete mind this year and purchased a play station.

I have got a LED TV at home and I can connect my PS4 to my TV. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was the TV was in the living room and everyone or the other watches TV or do not want to see me playing over there. Also with GTA 5 there were so many scenes which I really had to play in privacy without my parents watching what all things were in the game apart from violence :)

Hence thought of connecting my PS4 to vintage monitor. But days went by, I could not do so. I purchased a HDMI to VGA Adapter, but still could not manage to connect my PS4 to the monitor.

Then one gentleman in the attached youtube video told me about a HDMI switch for my PS4 slim. I purchased the same from SP road but still it did not work.

Finally checked one more video where I got advise to turn of the HDCP under system and finally it worked.

So I got to play PS 4 in my room with my old monitor. Its been close to two months I had touched my PS4. I could not play longer, as I had multiple tasks to do.

Blog, upload pics, write code (office work) and was tired after searching for all the things to get this up and running. But in the end a worthwhile effort. Let me see, if I play after doing all this circus.

I somehow feel, I cannot play even though I have interest because I have loads of other things to do.

How the connection goes.

1. PS4 has HDMI ouput.
2. PS4 HDMI output to HDMI Switch input.
3. Output from HDMI to HDMI to VDA Adapter.
4. HDMI to VGA Adapter to VGA monitor.
5. 5V DC power supplied to HDMI switch.

In the image, square box with a blue indicator light is the HDMI switch.
Where you see the VGA Input is connected is the HDMI to VGA Adapter.
At the bottom of HDMI switch you see the power from another adapter.

Cheers for now. Let me see if i can attach an image of my setup.

Videos which helped me are below

Why I love 80's

One more reason why I love 80's.
The song portrays the essence of my early childhood days, simple songs, great  music, lesser complicated plots, minimalistic technology.

By the way one comment stands out over here from the rest. Will show that one too.

\

I myself do not remember seeing so many henchmen in one screen all grooving to a song, whilst rubbing law enforcement in the wrong ways. 

Years later I remember seeing so many, but they were different, less mature and more childish, though they were powerful in all the bad ways possible, it never lent any impact because, acting was overshadowed by stupid plots and heightened technological interference.

Technological interference reminds me of a naturally aspirated engine versus a turbocharged engine. Never mind.

Cheers, 

Of friends and facebook - unfriending!

Today somehow made the concrete decision of reducing my FB friend count. I have stopped accepting new requests unless its my trek friends. But since the number was hovering at 202, which is probably huge and I am not in touch with almost 100 of them since last one 3 years, took a bold decision to do a friend count revisit and cleanup.

Had time in the morning and deboarded few of them from my friend list. The count now stands at 150, though 100+ of them are still under restricted list, rest 30 of them, I'm not following them.

Reason why I chose to do this, was not only that, I was out of touch, moreover, I am in peace with my own life. I'm least bothered as which part of the world others are, whether they are sleeping eating drinking or driving, it makes least difference to me. I really do not have time to admire others' day to day activities, I wish the same in return too. So it was high time, I took a concrete decision.

So, all in all, I get to save lots of time, by not browing feeds on facebook. One way to be more productive and do things which I like to do the most!

Cheers to life!

Of movies: Baahubali & Baaji Rao Mastani - TTTT 53

Let me be honest, I generally do not prefer to watch new movies, be it bollywood or hollywood. Reason being, I do not have time and also I sincerely feel all the latest movies in the market are absolutely uninspiring and uninteresting.

That is my opinion by the way and I do have a right to have one.

I, instead prefer to watch Rajkumar & NanaPatekar, Amitabh Hindi movies over and over again, even though I have watched it around 50 times before. Reason being dialogue delivery.

During my recent trip to Gujarat via bus, the only option to spend time was by force feeding myself to watch movies. While going I had gone in a semi sleeper (sitting) and as a result, there were 2 television sets for the entire bus and whether or not, I wanted to watch it, I had to watch it.

This was one drawback of travelling by road, I can live with it for the moment. Let me tell you about the movies which I got to watch.

Baahubali 1 & 2, Baaji Rao Mastani (two are sufficient for time being)

All these days I was wondering, what it is all about Katappa killing Baahubali, everyone wondering why why and why?

I guess a 1000 hours productivity has been already lost just because of pondering over this question. And when I watched the  movie, I just didn't feel the need to even think for an answer to that question.

The movie was nothing but special effects. I did not enjoy the movie, I am glad I did not spend my money on the tickets for the same.

Same with Baaji Rao Mastani, was there something special in the movie, I guess not, I felt the dialogue delivery of Baaji Rao was substandard, nothing to be compared to even Raza Murad in the same movie.

What an irony.

Forget comparing with the likes of Amitabh Bacchan, NanaPatekar and the legendary Hindi actor Raj Kumar. Voice of Bhaji Rao was just a big turn off.

Never mind it is my opinion. I'm glad, I watched these movies for free, else I would have to curse myself for a lifetime, for watching them after paying money.

Cheers.

Gujarat trip

My 8 day Gujarat trip finally came to a closure today as I reached home at 7pm. The biggest difference between this trip and my other North India trips was that, previously I used to take flight rather aeroplane to travel.

This time I chose bus, yes, SRS Travels volvo bus to Ahmedabad and one more SRS Travels volvo bus back from Ahmedabad to Bangalore.

My iternary goes like this

1. Bangalore to Ahmedabad.
2. Ahmedabad to Bhuj.
3. Bhuj to Rann of Kutch.
4. Rann of Kutch to Bhuj.
5. Bhuj to Mandvi.
6. Mandvi to Dwarka.
7. Dwarka to Rajkot.
8. Rajkot to Ahmedabad.
9. Ahmedabad to Bangalore.

Cheers to one of a kind trip. I'm feeling tired after my 27 hour bus ride from Ahmedabad to Bangalore. Completely worthwhile and definitely one of a kind!

Cheers to myself for making it happen!

Weekday off

After working for 20 days on the trot, I decided to take off on a weekday that is Monday. Every since I started working, taking off on a weekday has been the best guilty pleasure.

I had no other option I was exhausted to the core, unable to think about work, because I had worked so much, written so much code, unit tests that, I had enough. This in addition to meetings, helping out others plus facing all those negative energy and forces at workplace!

Somedays, I think we should be paid not only for our work but for enduring the dirty politics and negativity others bring which we have to face, which stresses you out.

Watching the world go by while you just listen to music, read a book or blog or play on PS4 can be nothing short of heaven.

Cheers, to one more such a day!


On reading reminded me that, I have to start reading
Kim by Rudyard Kipling - audio book as well as kindle.
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen - audio book as well as kindle.

Upcoming posts

1. Something to pursue for a lifetime - ie exercise.
2. Movie which I need to finish watching.
3. New way to promote a movie?
4. Stock market and company valuation.
5. Dream of having personal library of books of course :)
6. Pictures from my recent trek in the forest.
7. Hindi - Ghazalish duet songs of 1980's.

When we encountered wild boars on a trek (for the first time) - TTT 49

Since the day I started trekking, I had always wondered what all wild animals will I encounter. I had encountered elephants (at a distance though), reptiles, deer, Indian Guar, few other creatures. I always used to see land dug up by wild boars during many treks, the mud they smear their bodies with, also trees which have claw marks of bears. Once when we were cooking food in the forest, apparently there was a bear sighting close to our camp.

I had never seen a wild boar in the forest. I had heard they are a plenty in some of the forests. But this time, it happened, got to see wild boars, 10-12 in number at around 50 feet from us.

Upon seeing us intruding into their territory they just ran away. Apparently they are quick and can pose threat. Luckily we could mind our own business and get out of the forest.

So one more interesting encounter to post about! Sadly they were so quick, I could not take picture of them!

Cheers,

When we had a tyre puncture 3 times in a row on a single trip! - TTT 50

Till date it had happened once during our journey that, we had encountered puncture or flat tyre two times. But last weekend, was something special, our vehicle got punctured two times before we reached our destination and guess what, we were stranded on the road early in the morning for over 2 hours.

I had almost lost interest in the trek because of this delay, but in the end all is well that end's well. We got the flat fixed and started our journey. None of the people complained.

Below is the picture of our stranded vehicle somewhere in Hosanagara after Shimoga.

Guess what, we were stranded somewhere in Hosanagara again during our return journey, that makes it 3 times in one single journey and what better post to put up TTTT # 50,

Cheers,

When we had a 6 year old on our trek - TTT 47

During my last beach trek from Gokarna to Honnavara, we had a 6 year old kid as a member of the team and he trekked all the way from Gokarna till Kumta along with us. He was the son of one of our trek team members.

Isn't that cool, starting early means a lot to a lot of people. Whilst everyone was kind of mediocre with their energy and their enthusiasm, this kid was at his best, enjoying the waters and the beaches.

Only time he felt home sick was during the return journey near Mavinagundi :)

Cheers, will upload a pic soon!

When we ended our trek early due to losing our way and then.... TTTT

Of Ruskin Bond and commercialization - A conversation on goodreads.

Recently had a conversation with one stranger on goodreads. It was about Ruskin Bond autobiography which had come out recently, "Lone Fox Dancing". Somehow the conversation tilted towards stories of Ruskin Bond being printed again and again under different titles or for commercialization.

I deeply felt offended. I could not figure out as to why I was offended, but I was. Later after a long period of contemplation I wondered why.

There were many points, Ruskin Bond and his writing is close to my heart, obviously I was offended. But bigger part was how less equipped was the person who was trying to tell me that Ruskin Bond was more or less having a mindset of commercial writers these days.

Good thing was, I let the stranger sink in his own ignorance, meanwhile, I just figured out what I could take away from this conversation.

Well, Ruskin Bond now in his 80's, can he be indented towards commercialism these days? I'm pretty sure no. When he wanted money via writing he has made sufficient. Though he struggled too during his days.

Plus the stories of Ruskin Bond should be published again and again. I guess, its not because I like them. But its because they are all about celebration of India as a country. What our country was during that golden era, when there was no commercialization to worry about. Just plain simple life. Plain simple stories. No fuss, no complications.

Why shouldn't our country be glorified in such ways? I bet it should, so more and more stories of Ruskin Bond should be published again and again.

I get to relive those days once again, if not in real but atleast in fiction and if not in personal words atleast via words of Ruskin Bond.

Cheers,

Wish I could quote some Kipling poetry, I'm afraid, I will have to do some more reading to mature!

Best youtube comment

Sometimes, over the internet you just end up reading something, which really catches your attention. one such thing I found is a comment for a video on youtube.

The comment reads like this -

The song in picture is "Tarzan Boy - by Baltimora" 

When we loaded honey and jaggery (in our vehicle) while returning from our trek - TTT 46

I have been on numerous treks in the last 2-3 years. Each time, we do go by a hired vehicle, more often than not, it has to be 12 seater Force traveller, other time, we had 24 Swaraj Mazda and 30 seater TATA bus.

This time too during our beach trek we had a Tempo traveller. All these treks, though we visit places quite distant from Bangalore, we never load our vehicle with consumable stuffs during the return journey. 

Stuffs like, rice, vegetables or anything which is produced at the place of our visit and which can be ferried back to Bangalore and which works out cheap for us.

But there is a first time for everything. This time, we managed to source Jaggery and Honey from somewhere in the Sharavathy valley and we loaded them in Sagara. Opposite to Sagara bus stand.

It appears there is a subtle difference in the purest form of honey and packaged honey! 

Cheers,

When I trekked the same route for 5 years in a row (yearly once) - TTTT 45

After all this is something which I could proudly write about. It happened for the first time in 2013 and as of 2017 its still on!

I am referring to my participation in the annual beach trek. I had this so called affinity to beaches and it was not very evident until I was away from India. Even more is my affinity to the coastal area of Karnataka, especially Gokarna till Udupi stretch. It makes me feel grounded. It gives me time to contemplate.

Each year there are lots of groups which do beach treks along the coastline. This year too, I am happy that I was a part of another group. Not just that, it completed my 5th year of beach trek.

1. 2013 - Kumta to Aghanashani beach / Tadadi port (boat to Gokarna). (22 members).
2. 2014 - Apsarakonda to Bhatkal (Sri Durga Parameshwari temple Ilvekodi). (26 members)
3. 2015 - Gokarna to Haldipur beach. (28 members)
4. 2016 - Gokarna to Haldipur beach (13 members).
5. 2017 - Gokarna to Kumta beach (13 members)

Apart from one year, where I trekked from Apsarakonda all the way to Bhatkal via Murudeshwara of course, all the years it has primarily been Honnavara to Gokarna OR Gokarna to Honnavara.

Feels so nice to have been doing it again and again. Hope to continue it in future too. Given a choice, of course with the same group too! And guess what I never get bored of this route.

The feeling of being connected to this piece of coastal land is just tremendous, you can imagine, how tremendous, the feeling of me being connected to India is (no prizes for guessing and no sarcasm please)!

Cheers,

When a strange reason ended our trek - TTTT 44

There have been multiple occasions when our treks have ended ahead of time. Each time, it would be the lack of time, rains, tired teams, losing way etc etc. But this time was another awesome reason end our trek ahead of time or rather to not trek.

I recently had been to Gokarna, to take part in this year's beach trek. We managed to walk all the way from Gokarna to Holanagadde beach (after crossing river Aghanashani / Tadai port via a ferry of cours)  on day 1 and camped at a temple.

On day 2, we managed to reach all the way to Kumta beach and there you go we needed some help. There is a place where the sea manages to stretch itself into the town as backwaters and we needed to cross this one. It is a good 15-20 feet depth and needs boat. On all the previous occasions we could manage to source a boat from the nearby fishermen, who would be busy cleaning their boats.

But this time, with no availability of people around, our only option was to walk along the road leading to Kumta town. After walking for half a kilometer we found water to drink and clean ourselves, via a roadside tap after all. The person instructed us that a bus would be available over here any time soon.

And, we managed to reach the main road aka NH-66. Now people were in two minds whether to walk back to the beach or call it over. Lunch and play time in the beach plus Apsarakonda waterfall dip was pending. So this precedence took over, we ended the trek 4 kilometers early. 

But all in all I thoroughly enjoyed the trek, which was overshadowed by some great company, one person of whom had come all the way from Gulbarga!

Cheers,

A driver who listened to retro songs only! - TTTT 43

This time, during the return journey from our trek, we had noticed one thing since the start. The music system in our van was always silent and never played any songs. So we asked the driver what was the reason, and why didn't he play any songs.

His reply was an uncharacteristic one. He told, he always listened to old songs. Fearing most people disliked old songs, he never bothered to play any music!

But in our team we had guys who liked old songs, especially Hindi and Kannada, and there was a unanimous yes for playing it out.

So we got to hear old songs from late 1970's and 80's sung by Shailendra Singh, Mohammed Aziz and others. Then there was a discussion about art films from 70's and 80's.

All in all a nice way to end a trek with some slow songs, providing much relief, during the night journey.

Cheers,

Trouble with BSNL internet

My goal for reaching 100 posts for the year seems to be going nowhere, I owe some part of it to BSNL. On two occasions when I had time to write something, BSNL internet was down.

Previously it was down for over 5 days in succession and today it was around 3+ days. Only after some people near my home intervened and blasted the operator at BSNL office, there was some quick turn around and repair was done and internet re-introduced.

Each time, not only the writing took a hit but even my office work, I generally work more from home and I'm better productive. But on these days, I used every curse from the dictionary.

In the meanwhile tried applying for ACT but no use, now shall try for TICONA or Airtel.

lets see, until then, scampering with BSNL.

Cheers,

Fit Stop (hits) on MTV beats

Every day while I workout in the gym, I get to hear some random playlists. After hearing same set of songs repeatedly, someone complained and we got a TV in the gym and now it belts out songs from music channels.

Its usually MTV beats or 9XM which airs while I exercise. I had a major major concern for this, as, along with the song, the music video turns up. And believe me, if its Sunny Leone or someone else (heroine), whole bunch of people who will be exercising will stop exercising and stand idle, looking at the TV watching the video. This despite of the warning of our trainer, having NOT to take longer pauses between exercises/repetitions.

Irony is that, music is just to aid exercising and here there is a distraction. Even bigger irony is that, MTV is about to start a program, "Fit Stop with Sunny Leone", I guess in the morning only.

But on the contrary what better and fitter person than Sunny Leone, someone who's totally fit,  (to aid people's exercise).

Cheers,

Only Ironies no sarcasm within this post.

Technological advancement or derailment - Alter thoughts 18

Recently in a conversation someone spoke to me about a song which is rather 10 year old and which used to be in the radio countdown at #9, or #10. So this put me into a kind of nostalgia.

These days I have stopped listening to contemporary music and every song which I like dates back to few years. I was wondering if these days such songs have been written or produced or sung.

Then I went back few years again and there you go I could get Billy Idol singing eyes with a face, Billy Joel singing Vienna, and this was 1980's and 1970's respectively.

I was just wondering what has all these technological advancements done to the music industry? where the essence of it still remains song writing and singing which have been the same throughout.

I feel its just the social media and marketing which have turned this industry too into a kind of gimmickery and capitalistic centered market, where emphasis has been taken away from good lyrics and song writing skills and turned it towards marketing and presentation skills.

So is this technological advancement or derailment where I need an optic fibre network over an undersea link just to provide me the data which comprises of what my neighbor is doing over his weekend, which comes all the way from a server located half way across the world?

Irony is I still complain, my internet is slow :) (I'm so curious to know what my neighboring is doing you see, just that I hate to go to him and ask him directly, I believe in snooping).

Pardon my sarcasm though :)

Same goes with writing, for inspiration, is there something which I can look to in the contemporary alternate rock music or any genre for that matter? Not sure!

Here and there I do find songs which I can relate to, but it isnt the same as the good old days, thanks to the derailment caused by technology, consumerism and capitalism :)

Am I correct in judging/assuming, help yourself with comments :)-

Cheers,

Nice country song

Found this song playing on a music channel on television. It sounded interesting. I felt it was indeed a nice country song I heard in a while. I generally do not follow this genre of  music. Great great great composition by Loy, Shankar, Ehsaan! [Hoping its not a rip off]

But this one appearing in a Hindi movie made it somewhat extra special. Sukhwinder Singh has sung it to precision. And Farhan Akhtar has done justice to the song with his steps. I sincerely wish the amount agreed upon to charity has been paid by now.

Need to check out more country songs, something I always wanted to do, but it always starts with Shania Twain and ends with Shania Twain :). and I run out of time.

Cheers,

Here goes the song which I was talking about -

Slow Motion Angreza from Bhaag Milkha Bhaag! Irony is I heard it playing while running on treadmill in the gym (2 years after movie release?, shame on me? or shame on the quality of contemporary music? suit yourself!).

Can you imagine when you are running and this song shows up. Do you run, do you dance or do you admire the song or think about German beer? Take a guess :)