My Journey of Life . . .

September 5,2012

On this very special day for the teachers, I got nostalgic about my school life and I recollect all the moments and the learning I have got from my school teachers. I always considered me so fortunate to finish the entire schooling in the same school (right from my kinder garden to my class 12). I am really proud to be an alumnus of the SPB Matriculation.Hr.Sec.School, Erode - the place which had witnessed the various phases of my growth.

I still keep remembering as many teachers as I could who were a part of my journey and those for sure will be remembered forever for giving me such a valuable possession- the education. On this teacher’s day occasion, I want to thank each and every one of them and would like to dedicate this post for all those who has inculcated a lot of good things in me. I tried to name as many people as I could, starting from primary school till higher secondary, and I would be more than happy if my schoolies could add more if I have missed anyone. :-)

Primary school:

Though I don’t really remember my LKG teacher's name, all I could recollect is, she was an Anglo-Indian, next is Ms. Emily whom I remember to have started interacting with from UKG, followed by Ms. Anandavalli, Ms. Vijaya, Ms.Geetha, Ms.Nirmala, Ms.Lalitha, Ms.M.Geetha, Ms.Gomathi, Ms. Narmada and still a few more. My bad that I could recollect only these many names, though I know there are still many faces which are hiding inside my mind.

High school:

I could clearly remember that many of my best pals who were besides me from the KG classes had joined in different schools for various reasons. Though the campus remained the same, the people were different. I had acquainted a lot of school friends during this phase and made a lot of good friends who are in continuous touch still. The new set of teachers included Ms. Thanga Parvathi Bai(my Principal cum English teacher cos of whom I could get better in my English) , Ms. Malathi(another insipiring English teacher), Mr.Narayanan(English), Mr.Rajamani(English), Ms. Sasikala(Tamil), Ms. Ananthi(Tamil), Ms.Nagamma(Tamil), Ms.Saroja(Tamil), Mr.Kulanthaivelu(Tamil), Ms.Indu(Science), Ms. Eswari(Mathematics), Mr. Durairaj(Mathematics), Mr. Ravichandran(Mathematics- I have got the most of the beatings of my lifetime from him only :)), Mr. Narasimhan(Physics), Mr.Srinivasan(Chemistry), Ms.SantaMani( Computer Science teacher - the one who showed me what a computer is for the first time in my life :-)), Ms.Nagarathinam(Biology),  Mr. Siva kumar(Botany), Mr.Kumaresan(Zoology), Ms. Krishnaveni(History), Mr. Gunasekaran(Geography), Mr.Nantal Ramasamy(P.E.T) and the clerical staff and the lab assistants Ms.Geetha, Ms.Thilagavathi who has always cared for and helped most of us.

Higher Secondary:

Post the public exams of class 10, there were further movement of my friends to various schools to pursue the higher secondary education. I still remained to be in the same environment and continued to meet further new staff like Mr.Soundarajan (Physics), Mr.Jallaluddin(Chemistry), Mr. Rajkumar(Computer Science), Mr.Ramanujan(Accounts), Mr.Shahul Amid(Economics), and a lot more others who used to teach in other departments. These people had formed the strong basics required for Engineering :)

All these wonderful people and a still lot more of them I have not named here, have really played an important role in laying the foundation stone in every kid of the school. To me, No matter how we are today, we should always remember our past and appreciate the people whom we have crossed by and reached this state. I am sure everyone would agree to fact the school teachers play a crucial role in anybody’s life (No matter how hard/good times he had in his schooling :)). I am what I am is truly because of these masters here. They have identified the talents in me and made me realize my potential and showed me what I could do. I must be very grateful to each one of them :)

I will not be doing justice to my life, if I forget to mention about the BEST teachers of life, my PARENTS, they are with me, supporting me in everything and anything I do and I want to do. The best learning from them being the VALUES of life, which is more important than anything for an individual. The next best teacher being the friends who makes you understand a lot of important aspects and way of life. In spite of so many teachers you meet during the course of the life, you can never learn anything anywhere better than what you do from your experiences :) and I am counting on them still!!!

My New Obsession

It all started during the month of April 2012, when I went for my first bike ride to Muninagara Dam with a few friends of mine. I was really astonished and happy to see that even I could ride that long (not so long 80KMS in 8 hrs though) and started gettting a wish/feeling that even I should buy a new bike for myself.  Started researching slowly about a lot of bikes, and the wish has turned into an obsession by which I made up my mind to buy a new one. With a lot of research about various types of bikes and after a profound thinking, I was able to narrow down that I should buy a hybrid bike(the one which can be used for both daily commuting and short tours) as that would serve my purpose. Yet, this is not the major deciding factor. The primary concern being the budget, I decided not to spend more than 10K for a bike at this point of time. I was little skeptical that this if this obsession fades off in a while, then my investment would go dead!!!

Being conscious about the decision, checked out a few stores in bangalore about the Schwinn,the Canondale, the Hercules, the Montra bikes and all were really way high out of my budget. Then I was introduced to the Decathlon store by my roomie. Visited their store near Sarjapur road in Bangalore. All I could find there was the MTB series bikes with not so sleek tyres which was extremely opposite to what I was having in my mind. I was in a mindset to get one with sleek tyres as that would easen the ride[that’s what I read from many blogs n forums]. Took a test ride of variety of cycles they had inside their store itself and found the b'twin Rockrider 5.0 to be good and a perfect value for money bike. The bike comes with a price tag of Rs.8999/- and all accessories extra.

Rear Gears

Rear Wheel

B'twin RockRider 5.0

After four months of researches and readings, finally I have zeroed in on b'twin RockRider 5.0 to be the one which could suit my needs-both from the ride and the budgetting perspective- and bought it :) :). Now its time for me start rolling the wheels as much as I could and make the best use of it. Hoping to go on for many rides in and around bangalore to exploit the fullest benefits of cycling.

Back from the hiatus :)

Though the year started with a ride to Coorg on the New Year’s Eve –with a hope that the whole year would be filled with different rides- due to a multitude of reasons the bike rides have been paused. To give a break through for it, resumed the season with a short ride to the Nandi Hills in Bangalore :). This is not the first time that I went there; the last time I remember was on February 2010 when I bought my new bike. This time took my roomie’s R15 and tagged me with one of my friend’s car.


13-May-2012:
Started by around 4:00AM from my apartment and reached atop by 5:30AM with a short tea break at a place 15KMS away from Nandi Hills. The weather there was excellent as there was a heavy downpour the previous day. It was a very chilled misty morning giving a very minimal visibility to the landscape. Clicked a lot of snaps [especially those profile pic ones ;-) for myself and my friends] and was loitering there for about an hour or two. It was too cloudy to witness the sunrise. Had refreshments at the small shops over there and started to descend the hill; stopped at the Esteem Mall at Hebbal, for a breakfast at McDonald’s and reached back home by 10:30AM.

The First View after reaching the top...

The Gang :)

It was really a refreshing and a very reassuring ride after months to resume the bike trips. The biking spirits were much kindled by the R1s, the Hayabuzas and the CBRs which passed by on our way back :). Hope to ride on more in the following months of the year!!!

Temple for the Techies ;-)

It’s yet another pilgrimage for me in this month, again in to the state of Andhra pradesh. Two weeks back I was on a trip to Tirupathi and now to Hyderabad, infact chilkur to be more precise and exact about the location. This temple is very famous for the people travelling abroad especially to US. It’s also called as the VISA temple. For me it was really new, something different and amusing to hear that from one of my friends who wanted to visit this temple. The Balaji temple in Chilkur is being visited by thousands and thousands of people every week, majorly by the IT folks and other students who await their visa approval to travel to US.

This temple is located in a village called Chilkur which is around 30 KMs from the Hyderabad city. The connectivity to the temple is really good as there are a lot of buses leaving from Mehdipatnam to Chilkur every 20 mins. [One of the buses which I remember was 288D, as we travelled in a taxi to the temple I didn’t notice much about the other bus routes.] From Mehdipatnam, Chilkur is about 16KMs and it follows the scenic route via the Mrugavani National park. This temple here is entirely different from all the other ones I have seen primarily for the fact that there are no monetary donations accepted. There is no hundi present inside the temple where you can donate any money.

Here goes the belief followed in the temple. One has to make a wish of his/hers and make pradikshana (circumambulate) 11 times. Once the wish is fulfilled he/she should go back to the temple and do pradikshana for 108 times. People of all ages and origin come to this temple, make their own wish and revisit once fulfilled. The Lord Balaji here in the temple is considered so powerful that almost everybody’s wishes get fulfilled and especially for those VISA seekers, they have always seen success after the visit to the temple and hence made this a VISA temple :). There are no special Pooja or anything done for anybody. All we can do is just see the God, pray and wish for ourselves and do the pradikshana. The timings of the temple are from 06:00 AM to 08:00 PM. Twice in a day Pooja would be done by 07:00 AM and 07:00 PM. Rest of all the time it is open for public.

We reached the temple by around 11:00 AM. There are a lot of shops and hotels in that area, where we can have food. We had our breakfast in an Udupi hotel and proceeded to the temple. Since it was a Sunday there was a big crowd of people waiting in the queue, but the queue did move really fast and we were done with our darshan by around 12:00 PM. We had to wait for about half an hour to start with the pradikshana; it took around another half an hour to complete the 11 rounds. That’s it; we are done, went again for a quick darshan and came out of the temple. It would take close to 4 hours for anyone to complete the 108 rounds. Once out of the temple, we had some really awesome lemon soda, sugar cane juice in the nearby shops and headed back to the city :)

Looking forward and awaiting my second chance, yet that won’t be covered in the blog later ;-)

Ride to Muninagara Dam

The weekend was yet another mundane one until I got a call from one of my friends towards the end of the Saturday to go for a ride to Muninagara Dam – a place near Bannerghatta national park in Bangalore. The plan is an expedition into the forest area surrounding the national park to explore the beauty of nature. It sounded very interesting and adventurous for the fact that this is a bicycle ride and the not usual motorcycle ones which I have been on so far. Initially, I was little worried if I could pedal 80 KMs altogether in the first one of this kind, but then boosted myself telling, if I can’t do this now at this age, then when else I could do it!!! So, continued with the plan and scheduled the start by 2 AM Sunday morning to avoid burning us out much in the hot sun during the daytime. The gang of five was ready to ride the next morning.

The next question for us was to get the cycles ready, as none of us except the one who came up with this plan have a bicycle on his own. Got a lead from him about the bicycle rentals in Bangalore and went and approached Unnathi automobiles- located in 6^th cross near the BBMP Park in New thippasandra bangalore- which has B’twin 5.0 bicycles for rent. These cycles have 3 front gears and 7 rear gears providing a combination of 21 gears for easy riding. [I did not know the technicalities of the cycle, yet got to know these details from the shopkeeper]. We just need to give one ID proof original and address proof photcopy to get the cycles. The rent per day is Rs.300/- per cycle. Rented 4 cycles at around 8 PM Saturday night and rode them to Ulsoor, which is the start point of our ride the following morning.By the time we reached back our house, it was 9 PM, had dinner and chats and went to bed to take a power nap.

As per the plan, I and my friend got up by 1 AM to get ready and leave from my house to Ulsoor in bike. The start itself was a bit scary as we were chased by dogs thrice near my house itself. J Somehow built courage and proceeded forward and reached near Ulsoor. There awaited the next scary thing for us. We weren’t aware of some local temple function and the processions happening over there. The whole of that area is on streets, enjoying the festivals. People were drunk all over, dancing for songs and the beats and full police protection was given to that area, we had to take a lot of diversions to reach my friend’s house there.

We set out for the ride from Ulsoor by around 2:45 AM. The ride was at ease in the early hours of the morning that we could cover more than 10KMs in the first hour itself. Stopped near the Royal Meenakshi mall in the bannerghatta road around 4:00 AM for a break of 10 mins, took some snaps there and continued further 

Guys relaxing and discussing about the first leg of the journey :)

The next stop was after crossing the junction which has the deviation for the Bannerghatta national park, kaggalipura and ragihalli. There are two routes to reach muninagara from here. One is via kaggalipura and the other thru Ragihalli. We took the ragihalli route as that would be more scenic to ride amidst the forest. 3 Kms down the anekal road, there would be a deviation with a sign board which says Ramakrishna Mission 10 KMs. We have to take right in this place, from here on it’s the forest route. When we reached this junction by around 5:15 AM, there were 3 villagers who guided us with the routes and also scared us a little by telling about the presence of Elephants en route. We were not having enough light sources with us; only one of the cycles was having a light with which we came so far. After hearing from them, I dint want to take much risk to ride on to the forest route in complete darkness, so took a break there for about 20 mins, so that we would be in sunlight  when we actually get into the forest roads.

The Road Not taken

The Bikes

Resumed the ride by around 5:40 AM when the visibility gets better and moved forward. There were a few two wheeler and auto rickshaws coming in the opposite side and one of the guys stopped us and warned us again about the prevalence of elephants en route and asked us to be careful while going. For a minute I thought, we are going to get stuck with the elephants and going to experience something which is really adventurous. Yet, nothing of that sort really happened. We continued to proceed forward in the twilight and within half an hour we could see the sunrise in the horizon. The road was really good to ride except for 2-3 steep rises in it, which made me get exhausted completely. Stopped for very short breaks for 5 mins in between and reached till Ragihalli by around 6:30 AM.  

Mullaiventhan doing stunts with the Bike!!!

Its Chinnadurai's turn now...

In Ragihalli village, we enquired about the route to Muninagara dam, and to our disappointment everyone told it is not possible to reach the dam via this route and to reach the dam we need to take the Kaggalipura route only, to which we need to backtrack 15 KMs and ride another 19 KMs from there, which would really be a herculean task for all of us. I was so exhausted already that I was not in any mood to backtrack and take the other route. Had we done that, I wouldn’t have had energy to ride back to Bangalore at all. J. Decided to drop the Dam idea, had breakfast at Ragihalli in a small mess and rode a little further to get into the trails in the forest. Got into one trail and did a terrain ride in the rocks and bushes in the forest of about quarter kilometer, took a few snaps out there, and came back to the main roads of the village. It was 8 AM, when we are done with all this and we wanted to head back to Bangalore at this point of time, so that we can reach back before 12 noon. 

Guys following the leader Deepan

Amresh posing in the trails...

Started with the return journey, took our first break after crossing the AMC College to drink tender coconut, sat down for a while and proceeded further. The sun has come overhead and it was horribly hot to ride thru. The return journey was a bit tougher than the onward due to the weather change. Took enough breaks now and then and reached back to the den by around 10:45 AM. Straight away went to the bicycle rentals and returned the cycles and went home and got crashed to get up again by 5:30 PM in the evening. I was really amused and astonished to believe myself that I have done 80Kms ride without much of complexity. Though, we din see the dam for which we intended to ride, it was really a different experience to try out the bicylce after years, it was one of an exhausting yet enthralling ride. 

A Walking Pilgrimage ...

When I discussed about going to Tirupathi with my friends, one of them was very enthuse in going for a walk and climb the hill. I was little skeptical about this idea in the beginning thinking about my physique and the body conditions. I hardly indulge myself in any physical exerices. But then, with his continued motivation and other friends’ involvement I also joined hands with them to be a part of this exhilarating experience.  Did the usual ground work of reading thru various blogs and googling and built the confidence inside and got geard up for the trip.

As per the plan, we reached the downhill – a place called ALIPIRI- by 01:00 AM (04/07/2012-Saturday). This is the place where the steps for the pedestrian starts. Had a cup of tea with a cycle chai wala there and started our missionJ.  The intial idea was to reach atop -covering around 3550 steps and about 16KM-before dawn, as we are all amateurs and first time climbers in Tirumala. When the clock ticked 02:00 AM we had already crossed 1000+ steps and were elated with the good progress we made. The intial 1700 steps were kind of steep and hard to climb continuously. It would be really tiring for a common man who was not involved much with walking or any such physical exercises. We had to stop for every 300 steps, breathe out and march on. I was little scared before we start the trip about the route as to how well it would be lit and how crowded it would be and the like. But to my surprise, the place was neatly and well lit by the TTD, and a humongous crowd was ascending the hill leaving us with no fearJ.

There are a lot of shops available enroute selling juices, glucose, chur mur, mangoes and anything and everything one would want to keep him active and refreshing while walking. The walk became effortless once we reach 2350 steps. This is the place where we can get the tickets for DivyaDarshan –a special queue only for the pedestrians to the temple. One needs to be present infront of the Web cam there in the counters and will be given the ticket with the image of his face on it. The reporting entrance for the darshan would also be mentioned in the ticket itself.

The next 6 KMS from here would just be a casual walk in the midst of the jungle and the bus route. A deer park would be visible to the left of the walk way. This stretch covers about 500 steps. These steps are not at all steep, they are too simple to walk and cross by. Towards the end of this stretch, we can see a big Hanuman Statue near to 2850^th step. We reached this place around 3.45 AM. After this, again the steepy steps will begin; we have around 750+ which need to be climbed to reach atop. When we reached the top of the hill, the time was around 04:45AM, it was much earlier than what we were anticipating. There is a place called Madhava Nilaya, where the pedestrians are allowed to get refreshed- a locker will be given to keep all the belongings inside- and can take bath in the common bathrooms available there. Once refreshed there, we can go directly to the entrance mentioned in the DivyaDarshan ticket and wait in the queue. We reached the queue around 05:30AM. Since it was a Saturday morning and the summer vacation time, we had to wait for about 5 hours before we finish our darshan. It was 10:30AM when we came out of the temple and went to the laddu counter. Though the walk was a bit tiring, lengthy one, and the wait was very long, when we came out after darshan, our hearts were filled with satisfaction and happinessJ.

From my personal experience, I thought it would be helpful if keep in mind the below points:

1. Start in evening 6 PM or at the midnight around 1 or 2 AM to avoid hot sun or else it will be really tiring and difficult to walk with bare foot during the day time. The max time it could take is 4 hours for a normal midaged individual with adequate breaks
2. Don’t carry any luggage while climbing; it would ease the process of walking and climbing the steep steps. We can drop the luggage with the free luggage counters provided by TTD. The luggage will reach the top before us waiting in the counters uphill
3. Water and all other necessary refreshments shops are available round the clock through out the way. So no need to worry about anything to carry with
4. Mobile phones signals are proper, so no worries about carrying them. It would definitely be handy in case of emergency. After reaching top we can drop the phones in the counters provided by TTD ( this would take more time while getting back after darshan, so better to keep it in our luggage after reaching top)
5. There are a lot of Mandaps on the way, where people can sit/sleep if over tired. So it wouldn’t be very difficult for anyone of any age to climb the hill

New Year 2012 - Ride

To commemorate our last New Year’s ride to Hogenekkal falls, the thoughts were about doing another ride for this year as well. Since we had a full weekend this time, the plan was to ride to a remote place from the city and celebrate the New Year there. After so much of ground work, we narrowed the destination to be Coorg. Read thru a lot of impressive blogs and travelogues and collected handful of information to proceed with the trip, which gave us the thought not to restrict the ride within the weekend and planned to start mid day of Friday and come back by Sunday night to Bangalore. As only 5 of us were there, we didn’t opt for any resort/ home stay in Madikeri, took the help of a colleague who is a native coorgi and managed to book the accommodation in a lodge in Kushal nagar.

Day 1- 12/30/2011:

           Started from house at around 3 PM, the first stop was at Outer ring road, Vrindhavan tech village to pick my roommate from his office and continued to ride on. The starting stretch was a little buggy till we cross all the heavy traffics of the city and enter the nice road from Bannerghatta road. Beyond that was a little peaceful ride all along the Mysore road, SH17. Took a little tea break before Ramnagara for sync up of all the 3 bikes and proceeded further. The next stop was near the Srirangapatna to check the routes. It was really handy to have a GPS in mobileJ, used the technology and found the route and followed the GPS completely till we reached the Hensur road via Ring road in Mysore. By the time we reached there, hunger started striking us. Had a quick dinner in a dhaba in Mysore and headed on. The route till this point was a well known one for all of us, but we don’t have any idea how it’s going to be further. Adding to that, this is the first time that we all ride thru in late evenings and night. It was kind of exciting to ride thru a new route in a new wayJ. All were completely dependent on the GPS this time. Luckily the road till Hensur was really good. It was a neat 4 lane road which eased our ride and could proceed in a faster way than expected. Post that it was a two lane road till Kushal nagar. Fortunately there was less traffic that we could zip thru to reach Kushal nagar at around 10 PM.  Got into a Café Coffee day and munched something before reaching the lodge. Had a chit chat for a while and slept off with high dreams of site seeing the next day.

Day 2- 12/31/2011:

           As with every trip, this time also there was a delay in the morning to start from our rooms, finished the breakfast at around 9:30AM and rode forward to abbey falls. The first disappointment started here for us.

Abbey Falls

          The expectations from our end were too much, that we didn’t even spend half an hour in the falls after seeing it. It was a big let down to start with the trip!! The next destination was to get into Madikeri town. One convincing fact was that, the road from Kushal nagar to Madikeri town was really good to ride. Reached madikeri town at around 11:45 AM and went to the fort and government museum.

Commisioner Office, Madikeri

         Again the fort was not that great as we thought of, yet managed to click a few snaps out there and had the lunch at east end hotel. The food was not that expensive and good as well. Next destination was Talacauvery, which is about 45kms from Madikeri town, en route is the Bhagamandala temple and Triveni sangama. The next in the package to disappoint us was the Sangama. To all our surprises, the Triveni sangama doesn’t seem to be neat and tidy also. Don’t know if that’s cos of our choice of season. We expected to see a big merger of 3 rivers (Cauvery, Kannika and forgot the other one), but it was just a small pond kind of a place which was the so called holy sangama!! K. All were completely disappointed at this time, as nothing turned out to be good in our way so far. Still proceeded with a little hope that the Talacauvery would be a worth visit, or rather left with no option as we are just 8KM away from there. Continued to ride in the bumpy road and reached talacauvery. That was much better than the rest. It was a serene and a calm place.

          Spent close to an hour there, clicked a lot of photos of the place and the people and resumed with our return journey. We wanted to reach back madikeri at any cost before dark, as the route we came till here was really horrible, it was a complete 38km bumpy road, hardly a few meters of stretch had a good road.  Managed to reach back Madikeri per plans at around 6PM, and continued to head back to Kushal nagar.

 The ride from Madikeri to Kushal Nagar was not as smooth as it was in the morning. First it was pretty dark to ride thru the ghat sections, and secondly it started raining as well. We somehow managed - as we had a lot of troubles with the visibility- to reach back the lodge by 7:30 PM. Had dinner in a nearby hotel and had a big discussion about the flop plans of the day and slept off J. It was indeed very tiring and unsatisfactory the end of day, two reasons one the roads being pathetic and the other even after crossing all the hurdles, the spots weren’t any impressive. This made us all fall asleep before the New Year starts J

Day 3- 01/01/2012:

          Started pretty much early the next morning at around 8:30AM and directly headed to Dubare elephant camp, which is around 16 KM from kushal nagar. One has to cross the river Cauvery via boat to reach the other bank of the river, where the elephant camp is. The boating charge is Rs.20/- (to and fro) and after reaching there, Rs.20/- has to be paid as an entry fee. This is the place, where we are allowed to interact with the elephants you can touch it, help it in taking bath, feed them and take good snaps posing with themJ. The river was in its pure form and that was very inviting for a bath. So all jumped into the river, took a bath in holy Cauvery. This is the only time when we enjoyed much in the tripJ and were satisfied that the purpose of the trip is met.

         Had breakfast in a hotel there in that place itself and headed back to lodge. Vacated the rooms and started back to Bangalore. The most important thing which we missed was the Golden temple in Kushal nagar, and other thing listed in many blogs was Cauvery Nisargadharma. Keeping in mind the traffic on our way back to Bangalore, we took the decision to skip these two and headed back to Bangalore. With a few breaks in between for lunch at Mandya, then at Maddur for the famous maddur vada, we reached back home by 7:30PM

         To conclude, the trip rating was good only for the ride we enjoyed all the three days. From my personal opinion, Coorg doesn’t have any good places as we read thru in blogs, the weather was not that cold either. They completely mislead us and created so much hype and expectations that we came back with disappointment. May be a home stay in Madikeri with a large group of friends could give a different experience.

Trip in a nutshell

 Number of days: Two and half

Bikes in the ride: CBR250R, R15, CBZX

Route taken: Bangalore -> Srirangapatna -> Ring road Mysore -> Hensur -> Kushal nagar ->   Madikeri

Distance covered: 685 KM (Round trip including the all places visited)

Places Visited: Abbey falls, Fort in Madikeri town, Govt. Museum, Bhagamandala temple, Triveni sangam, Talacauvery, Dubare elephant camp.

Places Not visited: Golden temple, Nisargadhama.

Accommodation: Hotel Iceberg (Rs.5000/- for 5 people for 2 days)