Ghuttu - Uttarakhand / Remote villages of the Himalayas - 2

After Ghansali village in Uttarakhand, we headed next to Ghuttu. This was another small village kind of thing located remotely from mainland. It was one of the better populated villages with a GMVN guest house. It had a good place to eat. There was a bus which would start each day morning and go to Hrishikesh which would be around 7+ hours journey. Apart from that, the another bus would come back and be parked at Ghuttu overnight. This is the place, where we actually relaxed and had great dinner after a hard hard trek. It had a flowing river, lesser population, less disturbance,
amazing sunset.

We got to stay in this place for almost 3/4 of a day from 1pm in the afternoon till 6 30 in the next day. I cannot really call this a remote village, but indeed was an awesome place to unwind after a long arduous trek.

For lunch we ate all sorts of junk food, Samosa, gulab jamoon, veg chowmen.

Dinner was usual roti, rice and curry!

Cheers,

Ghansali - Uttarakhand / Remote villages of the Himalayas - 1

Auden's col was one such difficult trek, where we had exhausted everything in order to complete this trek. We were at our end of our energy levels, we had been stuck in snow blizzard for a day, we had rapelled from 500 feet using a single rope. We had crossed glaciers and we had walked through rockfall and avalanche zones.

Finally after a hard day's climb, we got to this village. The best part of reaching this village was encountering kids each one of them asking "Mitthi". Initially we did not understand what Mitthi was. But it meant sweets or toffees.Incidentally these kids request each visitor to that village sweets. Unfortunately, after being in the Himalays for 9 days, we did not have any
stock of chocolates of toffees. Everything we had was stale or just gotten over. We spent one whole evening plus night in this village guest house. I can never forget this village due to the hardships we encountered in reaching this village.

Cheers,

Remote villages of the Himalayas.- 0

Though I have been only on a few Himalayan treks, I am fortunate enough to visit few villages remotely nested within the Himalayas.
Reaching there has been problem, but upon reaching the remote village, the feeling of joy excitement is nothing short of unparallel.
Its always fun, thinking of these remote villages. Reason being, they are are so remote, its kind of achievement, after days of wandering in the Himalays like a mad guy, we end up amidst these villages which are almost a day or two away from regular human civilization.

So here goes the list of remote villages which we were fortunate enough to visit amidst our Himalayan treks.

- Ghansali / Uttarakhand.
- Ghuttu / Uttarakhand.
- BaraBhangal / Himachal Pradesh.
- Rajhgunda / Himachal Pradesh.
- Kaza / (Spiti)Himachal Pradesh.

Cheers, more description to follow.

Alter thoughts - 7

There is a general saying which goes, man should not sit idle, instead should strive for excellance. Excellance comes with hard work, meaning an individual must be in continous pursuit, which indirectly means he should not idle time doing nothing. He should always be focused.

I have seen people idling time. Where they do absolutely nothing and spend time, over discussions having tea, or sleeping under a tree. These people are often criticized for not being productive, growing old doing absolutely nothing.

So let me tell you my side of the argument and let me try to convince you why.

I am totally in favor of people who are sleeping under a tree, idling time over conversations and growing old doing absolutely nothing. But why is that the case?

Assume a situation each and every person works very hard. you will not find an individual, who is unproductive. Everyone works their heart out. But have you ever thought, are there sufficient usages of everyone striving hard.

A cobbler can work hard and stitch 100 shoes instead of 10.
A metal worker can work very hard and come up with loads of pressed metal, cut metal polished metal.
A cook can churn up 100 meals instead of 10.
A driver can drive all day long and drive 1000 kilometers instead of 100.

Lets take a step back, a cobbler will stitch 100 shoes only if there is a demand for those many numbers, if there are buyers for so many shoes. Why will a cobbler stitch so many shoes when there are no buyers?

Same way, a cook shall not cook, if there are no people to eat 100 meals.

There it goes, whats the point in the cook, driver, cobbler being so productive and hard working? when there is no demand for his work.

May be there is a way to artificially induce deficit in the market where in people can buy junk.

So, whats the point in everyone being so productive, striving for excellance. This brings us to the point where people criticize idlers, people who grow old doing nothing.

Are we correct in criticizing them, of course NO, as long as they are able to feed themselves comfortably, who are we to criticize the idlers?

After all life is meant to be enjoyed. For some people enjoying may mean through hard work and earning money while for others it might be just idling time.

What say,

Cheers,

One such Trek to remember - TTTT 38

There is some kind of general presumption that goes with a Himalayan trek. The presumption is that, after each Himalayan trek, any individual ends up losing weight, because, its exhaustive, walking, climbing over days together is not simple task.

But I have one such tale to share, where, my weight neither decreased nor remained the same. Yes, you heard it right, it means that, my weight had increased after the trek.

We went for a 12 day trek in the Himalayas, in September 2015, and when I came back to Bangalore and checked my weight, I had increased 0.5 kilos.

I may have eaten proper food in the time between completion of trek and me checking weight. But still, I think I know the root cause of this.

We had 10 ponies carrying food supplies. We had eggs till the last but two days of the trek. We crossed 3 high altitude passes and each time after pass crossing, we had chomen /noodles , pasta, custard and other food. On arriving at campsite on each trek, we were treated with loads of food.

No wonder, my weight increased over 12 days!

Cheers,

PS- How I wish, I do the trek again.!

Trek was Bara Bhangal trek in Himachal Pradesh, crossing 3 high altitude passes.
This route is fondly called the shepard's trail!

Happy birthday, Jamsetji Tata

Remembering the architect of India, Jamsetji Tata on his 178th birthday. 

Alter thoughts - 6

This post is a bit haywire, starting with me, going to he, then me, kindly excuse, just got a bit confused as to what I was trying to write!

Time and again, I have heard, people saying do what you love and love what you do. Some thoughts linger in my head regarding the above two line. I agree you need to do what you love. But when it comes to the question of sustenance, does this really apply.

Lets assume, I love photography and I wish to pursue it as a career. So, I end up doing what I love and I love what I do. Now lets give a thought about sustaining and revenue generation. In order to survive, I need money for my daily needs, food and shelter. Following my dream job can I achieve the same. Well, yes, but how?

Traditionalists say you have to work very hard, day in and day out you have to focus and finally it will yield results. So lets just think about hard work, scope of application and reward in the field of photography.

Just like me there will be 100's of people pursuing their own passion of photography so, its not a niche field. You just cannot tell how one person(professional) is better from the other just by looking at the photo and comparing.

Now, since there are many photographers around who do things professionally, what are the chances of me getting a contract and making money enough to be able to sustain myself? I'm not sure. If I had inherited a fortune from my parents things would have been different. But over here I rely on external contracts for steady source of income.

Does it exist, may be or may not be. Since there are many professionals in the field of photography, you need to charge bare minimum to get contracts. so you end up with some money after all.

So are you now sure that, you are still in the game and enjoying it considering you earn something which is a bit meagre? I'm not sure,

What I would like to tell is, even if you may end up doing what you love the most, you should never expect it to earn you a bread, because the chances of having a non existant market for your interest and high competition might drive you nuts. If it does not earn you a bread, should you still be doing what you love? (is there sufficient market to provide source of income to all, who follow their hearts)

But these days, I see, artificial market generation, in other words, trying to market a field which literally is non existent or is not essential. in order to make people spend money on things (photography) which they are not interested in, there is tremendous aggresive marketing strategies applied, where in the user gets tricked into buying unncessary junk and realizes the fact that he has invested (his saved) money only later to regret!

Is it ethical, just in order to keep one's inventions and interests running, you trick people into the application of stuffs, while you well know, its only leading to capitalism and nothing else. For example buying stuffs using smartphone on massive discounts!

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 5

My blog is generally not read by many, but yeah, I do remember someone, somewhere reading it and when you get some words of appreciation on this kind of post which evokes mixed response (rather depressive) in a normal crowd, you can be rest assured, you have an alter friend in your reader! Well, I have ZERO answers or solutions to the alter thoughts which run in my head.

Here goes another one!

I sometimes wonder, is 24 hours enough for a day. I generally get this thoughts because, we end up giving our time to so many people/stuffs, that, we do not get time for ourselves. Our day starts with or in the presence of someone and it ends with or in the presence of someone.

So, where do we sneak in the alone time? We work in some company, we eat in some company, we finally land home to some company. Is there a slight chance of a person being all alone for himself during the day? I guess not. If someone takes out his alone time, I'm sure the world is waiting to call him mad or depressed!

Do we nurture ourselves by not interacting with anyone? I know most people never feel such things, just seeing time go by is so much fun, but growing old is not so much. And yes, I get judged by people, which I do not really mind!

I haven't yet found a concrete way to balance family life with the need to be alone. Will write about it once that happens!

Somewhere in the middle, people will transition from kids to teenagers to adults to aged people and yeah, there you go, your life's over, zero introspection, unfulfilled ambitions or rather unfound dreams, and so, is 24 hours enough?

Cheers,

PS - I think after certain while, when you have a family, the urge to spend time alone becomes almost non existant, am I correct? 

Alter thoughts - 4

I sometimes just wonder, why does man work hard, why does man strive?

The reason lies in either of these,
- Strives to make money for various below reasons.
- Strives to find a sense of social security. So that, when he gets sick, he has some money to fend for himself, when it rains, he has a shelter, when he feels hungry he has food to eat.

So in a quest for his overall well being, he moves out of his comfort zone, he moves mountains, he works day and night so that the fruits of his labor act as enabler for the above mentioned areas of his interest.

I was just thinking is there a chance for a  mediocre man in this world? A man, who enjoys what is he doing at his own pace and lives life at his own pace and runs his own race.

Do we have to compromise on something, if we are opting out of the rat race? Working in Bangalore, I do feel its all about rat race. I am not sure if anyone thinks otherwise please let me know.

Everyday, I see people, including me, ferrying from one side of town to the other side, in search of work for work, for rending their service. If they do not, they (including me) will have no money to fend for themselves(ourselves too).

Doing this for years together, we may grow old, money may keep many happy provided it gives a sense of security and our work gives us a sense of respect. We get identified by these parameters by people whom we interact with.

Just curious, if all the people working so hard and part of the rat race, are they really happy, doing whatever they are doing. Or are they just trying to follow the crowd, where everyone does some work gets paid goes home and sleep.

With so much of travel, traffic, noise and pollution, and 9 hours of office work, is this the only way, I get to grow old? Is this the only way, I get to find my sense of identity, is this the only way, each human has to live/work.

Is there a different way to feel complete, achieving a sense of satisfaction, with all the hustle and bustle going on in our daily lives?

Why do people ask me, what I do with all my money, where have I invested it, why nobody asks me, am I happy with my job, am I at peace with myself?

Cheers, 

Alter thoughts - 3

Social networking -

The emergence of social networking in this decade is noticeable. It has its own advantages,
- It has given enough employment opportunities to people.
- It has made investors open up more of their money to build social networking systems,
- It has helped people to keep in touch, to network, to market to indulge in a way which was not possible previously!
- It has helped to send important especially distress signals quickly for a large audience.

Previously, growing up, absence of social networking, if a classmate changed schools, it would take months to recognize where in the world that guy went, I still have not met people who left school midway to another city / locality / country!

But are there any down sides. Oh yes, indulgence is good, over indulgence is not so good.

For people who wish to abstain from the crowd and lead life at their own paces, well, I am literally clueless, on how to abstain from reception of so many information.

Here I am getting force fed about information, data about lot of unwanted things and believe me, I am getting old, trying to interpret or analyze this information. I agree its a good past time, but on the contrary, it has led me to dissect every minuscule detail, most of which are unnecessary.

I am interested in good books, stories, and here I get all shown all info about movies, advertisements, what not. So, in a world where I try to mind my own business, here I am being shown everything materialistic, capitalistic. There are certain aspects of life which cannot be portrayed, which have to be felt, which can never be shown, but have to be understood and deeply nurtured and idolized. Like getting up on a Monday morning, doing nothing, abstaining from work, just seeing the world go by, not interacting with anyone.

Why are such simple pleasures not being shown. ?

If extreme capitalism, marketing is not the buzz on social media, we have people who try portraying themselves as the next best thing. like the,
- next best traveller,
- next best photographer,
- next best baker,
- next best socialite.

I agree, I do have photos on social networking, but guess what, after an year of joining the site, I have 85% friends on the restricted list, most of whom cannot see what I have shared. I am not being a hypocrite, I am just being myself, trying to hide my personal life/travel/ happenings from the race.

The next point which I have is, education should tell a man what is good and what is bad. But isn't over marketing bad? isn't over capitalism bad and here it is being done by all the educated people themselves, the root cause of which is to earn money.

well, hasn't education taught us that money is not everything. It has, but undergoing education is different and applying education is different. Most people end up studying and not applying, especially basics.

On the contrary education has definitely taught me, over indulgence is bad, I have deleted my quora account and I rarely check facebook/goodreads these days, the reason being, there are people everywhere portraying themselves as rockstars, most of whom do not get paid for doing so, its just the alter life they are leading or rather illusion which they are trying to portray, (who knows underneath of it what they might be hiding). And I do not find the need to fill my head with tonnes of information, I am trying to keep it simple, however, I have failed in keeping this post simple!

Here we are a generation of over-educated, success hungry freaks, trying to make money at an entire human species cost. There seems to be no care anymore in this world. Any person who cannot participate in the capitalistic rat race seems to be sidelined as an indifferent specie.

Anyways too many points in this single post, I will try to decipher them as and when I get time. Posted since my friend asked me to write something.

I can write about positivity, about my travel, but yeah, how long to suppress these alter thoughts.

By the way, this blog URL is known only to a specific set people.

Cheers,

PS - After reading this post, I am not sure what you will end up turning me as, sadistic, hypocrite, mad, lost soul ? let me hear your opinions!

Alter thoughts - 2

This post is dedicated to the person who opened up to me saying how less friends he/she had over the years!

Recently was having a conversation with a friend of mine, who was telling about how less friends he/she had over the years. That person also told me what was the reason for having less or no friends.

I tend to agree with all of the points with what the person told.

So, the alter thoughts or questions which currently run in my head are,
- Is it really necessary to have friends.
- Can a person survive individually?
 - Does not having friends points to some kind of social stigma which society has given birth to.

I am someone who is of the belief that, friends or no friends, as long as a person is happy, it hardly matters!

Look what I found on an inspirational post on a social networking site!

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 1

There are several thoughts which do round my head, I wonder why do I get into such thinking. I have always tried not to write serious matter in my blog, rather stuffs which are light weight, which brings smile on my face and reminds me of good old days!

But here I am, into this new year, as I grow older, I am thinking of putting thoughts down, under a different label though. I wish I won't be judged as sadistic, unrealistic. But you never know what runs in people's heads.

After working for so many years in IT, I have come across many people many questions many stuffs which leads me to few points!

 - Is this life meant only to be successful.
 - Is this life meant only to be rich & make more money
 - Is this life meant only to be lead on society's terms and not on one's own terms.

Several bollywood movies have taught us to lead lives on our own terms. But do we actually apply things. Never mind. Found a community on facebook and found this nice picture and lines. Here it goes!

In the coming few posts I try to dissect what runs in my head!

Cheers for now,

When we met the same driver again, on another trip - TTTT 37.

Last year december, we went to Gokarna in a hired vehicle which ended up with a flat tyre on two different occasions. We had to spend close to 6 hours early in the morning stranded on the road due to lack of help or repair.

So, we had thought we would never ever hire the same over confident driver or vehicle from the same tours guy again. But luck would have it otherwise.

This year we decided to visit Dandeli and guess what, the driver and vehicle was none other than the previous one only. Just that it had a new set of rubber and we were travelling on NH4. Luckily no such flats happened during this time and we reached home safely.

Cheers,

100 posts for the year

Done and dusted with 100 posts this year. I thought of writing about my Himalayan trek and put some pictures, but could not do due to few reasons. Last couple of months have been bit dull and boring.

Ending 2016 with a note of thanks to God for keeping me alive, my parents, my teachers and well wishers who have enriched my year with their presence,

Few trips did not happen,
Few purchases did not happen,
Here's hoping 2017 has a better stuffs in store,

Cheers,

Shuttle driver #16 - A driver who used to drive an ambulance

I have not written about cab driver series for quite some time, the reason being, we are having a steady driver for over 6 months. Well the reason for having steady driver is, nobody is ready to ply towards Kengeri from marathahalli. Current driver stays at Bidadi so its easy for him to drop us and head home.

The biggest irony is, we have had a steady cab for 6+ months, but there is unsteadiness at workplace. Few people have been deboarded and many people have left or leaving. Its sad to see so much of turmoil at workplace, and believe me its going to continue into the new year.

The current driver drives a Toyota Etios sedan. Previously he tells us he has driven an Ambulance (Maruti Omni). His driving style is the most disastrous of all (till date) and its more or less a pain to sit in the cab.

But we save 20 odd minutes each side owing to this reckless driving. But listening to so much of honking experiencing this much of braking leads to nothing but absolute frustration.

Why haven't I told him to drive carefully? Well, I had a fight with the cab driver, supervisor and few other people, and ever since then, I just shut my mouth in the cab and sit!

Reason for fight, I generally come late out of office usually 8 15pm and one day it just led to a heated argument and I just gave it back to my director,

that's it. So nothing special to write about this driver,

Cheers,

Is this Indian IT industry an illusion or a stereotype

I am still trying to understand the IT industry in India, trying to find out if its a illusion or a stereotype.

Let me write down the reasons why I can call it illusion is -

1. There seems to be very few fresh development projects which I see happening in India. (I have tried my hands at few companies and most work appears to be maintenance and highly non intellectual).

2. There are many startups and stuffs like that ,which are developing software, but, their main business is service aggregation, like online selling, online services etc and over here too the software is stabilized and not much new activity tends to happen!

3. There are many such development projects startups which never see the limelight. All those code written, software developed never gets to be deployed, never gets to churn out money, instead its just shelled.

I may be wrong, but generally assuming, why would Europe/US companies give out the development projects to Indian counterparts where in the  market lies over there. How do we understand market needs of other continent sitting over here. So actually speaking, we get to do the mundane work at lesser price.

Let me write down as to why I can call it a stereotype -

1. There is a huge requirement for people with lesser experience. Because they are paid less and charged more to the client. So if they are charged 15 Lakhs per annum they are paid only 3 Lakhs per annum. This is how the company makes money, not by selling software but by selling manpower and headcount!

2. If I spend some years in IT like more than 8 years, I am automatically stereotyped to be a manager (or an architect if lucky). Manager meaning managing people, whose numbers are generally less. Now are they non billable resources to the company? do they get paid from the timesheets filled by their sub-ordinates? because the client necessarily does not have to pay for the project or people management, he usually wants the work to get done.

So either ways you want to enter the Indian IT industry, you get stuck in this current of illusion or stereotype which you realize after you hit a deadlock.

Deadlock is when you hit a salary of some amount, experience of some amount and then you have no where to go, because companies want people with lesser experience and lesser salary expectations. There you go, only option left with you is to play politics at office to spend time or speak continuously yielding no results but showcasing one's marketing skills!

By the way when the number of such people (above categories) exist in the company, what do you think they do? They disrupt the work going on, they will not let others work. And the remaining people who wish not to disrupt other peoples' work, well, they end up clueless, may be in deep depression trying to find out larger meaning of life!

Cheers,

When we crossed two high altitude mountain passes on the same day (by road) - TTTT 36.

This too happened during our Himachal trek this year. We were returning from Kaza, Spiti valley and coming towards Manali. One the way we had to cross two high altitude mountain passes within a span of 5 hours.

Kunzum la  - 4590m or 15060 feet - stopped here to visit the Kunzum Mata temple. (5 30 pm)

Rohtang la  - 3978m or 13050 feet - Was all foggy wet, raining, poor visibility, less than 3 feet forward, was infact fearing for life, if the van slipped or skidded, we would have ended up in trouble. (11 30 pm)

Cheers,

When I completed lunch by 10:30 am - TTTT 35.

Many a times we  might have finished lunch by 11 am. But a how many times a full fledged course meal having roti, rice, rajma, aloo curry? This happened during our Himachal trek during this year 2016. We completed our trek and we ended up at Mudh Village in Spiti valley. From there on we arrived at Kaza in Spiti.

We had started from Mudh at 6 20 am and did not have breakfast. We had a long journey in front of us to Manali crossing Rohtang la and Kunzum la. So we thought of having as much food as we can. But would it be better if we completed lunch itself?  Oh yes.

But who in this place would feed us lunch that too at 10 30 am in the morning.

Yes, we found a hotel, one of our support staff knew a family who ran a hotel in the market place of Kaza and we went there for food. It was the first time I called home after 9 days flat, because I was able to get a connectivity with a BSNL sim.

Once we were at the hotel we found out we could have roti/aloo and rajma. But rice, yeah, we requested the chef to prepare rice too and he quickly got it done too. Though we waited for a good 15 minutes, it was worth it.

What followed was a bumpy ride in a rented Mahindra Scorpio along the non existant roads of Spiti valley. Though I was sitting in the middle seat, I almost ended up vomiting/puking. But the scorpio had a tyre flat on two occasions and we were stranded with no option in the middle of the road.

Finally we could gather a Tempo traveller as a replacement and yeah thus ended up my vomiting senstaion woes. I did not puke, luckily!

Cheers,

Tulu - When a language left me wanting for more - TTTT 34.

I am not sure if its a tale to tell, but its for me to learn. In the last couple of years, I have been to coastal Karnataka almost 12-14 times. Each time, I have met people speaking in Tulu. Many such times, I have people in our team who are either from Mangalore/Udupi/Puttur speaking Tulu with the locals.

I admit, I find listening to Tulu language very very nice. I cannot speak Tulu, but its on my wish list to speak. It sounds musical. I have plans to learn Tamil/Telgu/Marathi, but Tulu seems to be on a higher priority because of the fact that, it simply sounds so cool, the wordings the pronounciation. In case you find couple of Tulu speaking people, just listen to them, I bet, its fun, its addictive!

I really miss talking to the locals in Tulu, wish I could do it someday, wish I could do more trips to coastal Karnataka.

Until then watch out or search for the video featuring a movie scene Eragavuye kirikiri, its from a Tulu movie Ekka Saka

Cheers,
PS - I am not mocking or sarcastic while I write this, I genuinely admire the language.

This year we lost a music icon

Glenn Frey is a great musician, a legend infact. He along with Don Henley and few others played as Eagles in the late 60's early 70's and disbanded probably during 1980. They came back in the year 1994 and introduced themselves as a band which took a 14 year vacation.

Prior to the split they had announced they would unite only if Hell Freezes over and boy I guess that was the name of the reunion tour.

The year was 1994, I was still a kid, but I still remember distinctly playing Eagles tape again and again. Then, I never knew the history behind Eagles. My father is a fan of Eagles, so am I. Since 1994 I have listened to the Eagles a countless number of times, yet I am not bored by their songs.

Its sad, Glenn Frey is no more. I am listening to the song Take It easy as I am posting this from office. Remember the Scooty advertisement in the 90's featuring Raageshwari? Yeah that background song is Take it easy and by Glenn Frey!

Do check out the concert video of the song Take it easy especially the Hell Freezes over tour one, you will learn how a man in his 40's can rock with a guitar and blue and gray Tee shirt!

Hats off Glenn Frey! you will be missed.

Cheers,

PS - End of the year, George Micheal passed away, I listened to him only after 2001, not before that., because I was simply not aware. My favorite song by George Micheal is Father Figure.