God and his follower's belief..

How strange are our belief towards god :-)

we preach god never differentiates rich and poor but we have every temple on earth has special darshan for the VIPs and the rich :-)

we preach god exists everywhere and we waste our time and energy visiting temples...

we give donations to god who never needs it, on the contrary never even think to help a person in need.

We say everything is under his control.. give all the credits to god for every good thing in your life :-) however at bad times i have never seen anyone blaming the god :-) strange are our ways...

We are never happy with what you are or what we are and henceforth it always looks like we bribe the god for our own benefits :-)

With all these in mind... where does the word "Bhakti" (Faith) stands?

We have incorporated the concept of follow... every person who has come out to validate, has been leading a set of followers :-) thats the truth...

Treasured Forests

I had decided to drive over the weekend... got up on Saturday at 3.30am to leave early... however my day started with all the bang!!! from my mom with an array of complaints... any way i started my drive at around 5am, picked up 2 other friends for the trip.. i was surprised to see the traffic in the Mysore Bangalore highway so early in the morning.. it took quite some time before we reached Mysore... we decided to break here for breakfast and went to a hotel opposite Mysore zoo however it was very expensive is what we felt... a masala dosa for 25Rs was never in my thought especially in mysore... anyway it was not bad hence i didn't have much issues...

Things were lot more different from here, we were driving through lot more beautiful lands and lot more lesser traffic.. we reached HD Kote at around 10am. From here we decided to move towards gundre forest range near N.Beguru.. From here in order to get inside the forest we need to have permission from the forest office. One thing for shure its very difficult to get persmission from the forest department, we should get the permission from the forest department in bangalore near IISC. However my experience is you will not get permission that easily if you donot know anyone in the forest office.

With the help of some locals we did manage to get permission to get inside the forest, however we had an issue since an officer was visiting the place we just had around 2hr for the safari however later we managed to convince them that we can come back by around 5pm. So after a good lunch for 80rs for 5 people we went ahead with our forest ranger in a jeep inside the forest...

These forests are one of the best forests i have ever seen, first of all i was totally astonished to see the change in landscape from the beautiful farm lands to thick forests all of a sudden. And the best thing is the amount of wildlife you get to see here roaming in the wild.. This place is heaven for elephants,deer,tiger,wild buffalo,cheeta,bear and lots of birds... We managed to find lots of elephants,deers,wild buffalo... First thing i have decided after being to this place is i wanna walk in this forest and we have already made the arrangements for the same....

Its an amazing place to watch for the wildlife in the evening coming in 100s to the back waters of river kabini, the possibility of finding animals is very high during the summer.... however since we had to go back before 6 we didnot get the oppurtunity to wait and enjoy the scenic beauty over here....

It was a busy afternoon in jeep a bit scary to chase the elephants in the wild you never know when they are gonna turn back on you. However once out of the forest we went towards the kabini dam and this was one of the beautiful place i had experienced, the cool breeze was the most pleasent thing ..

I havenot mentioned much about the place becuase this was more of an unplanned trip and also it was more of trip to explore the place, hopefully i would write about this place in lot more details very soon hopefully within 2 months...

A feel of staying close to wild animals in the wild is an experience i never had before and it was worth it.. This place is around 220 - 230 kms from bangalore. Inside the forest we visited bannur gadde, gundre camp and nayalla camp. Next time we would be trekking to these forests by walk hopefully that would be lot more thiller with lots of wild elephants all along :-)

Bangalore - Mysore - HD Kote - N.Beguru - Gundre is the route. We returned back to bangalore by around 10pm in the night.

Shani..

Even though i was not interested my mom wanted me to go to temple 2 day for the navagraha shanti... wats this? i went to the temple and everything looked so funny... navagraha as the name tells nava is 9 and graha is a person who influence on you.. so as per hindu mythology 9 elements of energy who influence on you.. lets not get into the debate how.. so as per hindu astrologcial science who are these 9 elements..

1. Surya - Sun

2. Chandra - Moon

3. Mangala - Mars

4. Bhuda - Mercury

5. Bhrihaspati - Jupiter

6. Shukra - Venus

7. Shani - Saturn

8. Rahu - North lunar node

9. Ketu - South lunar node

While duing pooja i was in a state of mind like why am i wasting rice grains throwing at the stone idols? What is it thats going to change? I am always against doing things which has been mis interpreted badly... a science of astrology which is being just practiced without even knowing why are we doing the same? It should be taken and faced in the way it has to be done... it takes shani around 30years to revolve around the sun.. so if you are influenced by shani then there is nothing that could be done to avoid the same rather.. we need to learn from the difficulties we face, rather than praying without an ideology..after all a person who learns to face difficulties in life comes out wise.. its always a challenge which should be enjoyed.. rather than praying without even knowing why we are doing the same...

Anyway looking at the idols i got few doubts

1. Why are the idols facing in different directions? With sun in the centre..

2. How can we please the idols with a 3rd person b/w me and the planets?

3. Why do we pray the demons rahu and ketu? Is it just because they are importal? After all they were asuras right?

4 . If shani is a form of god then why is it that he wanna trouble ?

I donot say we shouldnot do these things... but what hurts me, we do lot many things without validating the facts or exploring the truth behind the same.....There are hundreds of pratices which are worth and few more which are fake... we need to learn to differentiate the same.

Politics vs Religion

It was around 2 years back when i was in delhi, then HRD Minister Arjun singh came up with the idea of implementing additional 27% reservation along with existing 22% reservation for SC/ST and few more percentage of which is for all the others like sports,army,rural etc in all the educational institutes... another concept of mixing politics with caste and religion a deadly combination which has hampered the growth and development of this country for years together now.. It was followed by lots of protests and agitations all along the country later the matter was moved to court and now after 2 years the judgment has come out...

Let me analyse and pin down my views regarding what is the pros and cons of the whole idea

Implemenation of reservations based on caste and religion is not for improvement rather you would be dividing the country based on religion and caste...... especially atleast not at educational institutes where in you are suppose to learn for your living rather you are teaching politics and religion in these institutes...

IITs,AIIMS and IIMs are the best of the institutes in our country reserving seats and not giving oppurtunity to the desired person is a crime..one is directly harming the basic right of an individual to live in this country... and more over reserving a seat is not important rather we should think can the student really cope up with the pressure at these high level institutes? Can he match up with the fellow students?

Its an idiotic thought of giving a seat reserved based on caste in a medical institute shouldnot we think like they are the future doctors of our country? probably thats the reason we find more doctors from india in europe and US rather than in india....One cannot be a better doctore based on his caste, it has be purely on his abilites.....

What is the fate of so called upper caste people who are below poverty line? Is that the crime of a student being born as so calledd upper caste? Are we really working towards a caste less society or are we moving towards dividing the country further? With the idea of reservation we have already started the debate of uppercaste and lowercaste.

We can talk 1000s of points regarding the ill effects however the supreme court has done a bit of good job by putting lots of clauses for implementation of these reservations. few of which are..

A graduated OBC is considered educationally forward and reservation couldnot be continued for PGs, however we can see our so called idiotic HRD Minister fighting against this!!

Reservations couldnot be continued for the creamy layered OBCs. Left over seats has to be given back to the students under the general qota. The difference between the student from general qota and reserved candidate has to be minimal.There are few good points like this however our politicians are already trying to find the loop holes in the judgment so that they could be used for their own political milage..

I feel ashamed to say our honorable HRD minister an idiot because he is one... has he ever been to government run school ? forget rural places visit a government run school in a city you could see all the students from class 1 to 7 sitting in a single room with a single teacher for all the subjects.. this is the plight of government schools i have visited... cannot he think of implementing newer ideas in these schools? Simply he cannot because working at the grass root level of an issue is never a criteria rather dividing the country in the name caste has become the primary responsibility.... At class 7 these kids donot know alphabets, at class 10 they learn to read words... and after 12 they have their seat reserved in an IIT or AIIMS... hats of to our ministers for their hard work......

One last point time and again i hear one point that the uppercaste has suppressed the lowercaste... so reservation is a must.... well if this is the ideology we are only moving ahead towards a generation were in the system is just going to get swapped .. we could already see that a few section of people fighiting to get their group the status of backward class.... once it was shamefull to be called lowercaste however in future it would be pride :-) Anyways i neither belive in religion or caste rather i would love to be human...

This country doesnot need enemies we have our own ministers for that job.. RESERVED..

Royal Bikers

After i returned from china, a trip was due for some time.... sripad informed me well in advance that he had friends from australia who would be joining us, we planned to go by car how ever at the final moment we could again arrange for 3 bullets from royal enfield for the trip.... what more would i expect to drive bullet in the interiors after such a long time....

As planned we started very early however as usual sripad was late by an hour....but still we managed to start by around 6.15... our first stop was at maddur coffee day.. after having breakfast we were ready for the long day.... Since we wanted to go through the country side along the green paddy and sugarcane fields we preffered to take a left after maddur rather than going through the chamarajnagar route....

This route to BR hills is a sceinic beauty of small villages and lots of paddy fields all along.... when you drive along the country side you need to feel everything on its way to enjoy it more.... the people.. the smell of soil.. the air everything was sooo pure ... this is the thing which i love the most when i go out of bangalore..... In between the road is not good however we enjoyed the beauty along the roads......

We stopped ourselves at one of the hakki pukki tribes were in we could go and talk to few kids... They were so happy to have their photos captured in our cameras.... and the eldery tribe's women were very shy to see their own photos in the cameras... Thanks to Dr.Sudharshan for providing house for these tribes men.... and working for the upliftment of these innocent people... over here we met other team of friends who had come in their cars.... we moved to BR hills from here.... its the beginning of the dense and unexplored forests... once it was veerappan territory were in even the forest guards scared to enter his territory....

In BR hills we have a beautifull view point just before the temple.... We had wondeful lunch which was shared by the other team. All thanx to poornima for the lunch. I always wonder at how people think at various times.... we went to the temple for lunch well we were late and nothing was left however the incharge just spoke to me in a rude manner that i dont have the god's grace to have food... how strange and stupid... well i had better food in offer for the day.. let his god keep the person who gave me food in great happiness... After this our primary priority was to arrange ourselves for the stay at night.... at the end we managed to get rooms for ourselves. After a small break we decided to go towards Kgudi...

Ever since i returned from the trip people have been asking me what is KGudi... well KGudi stands for "Kyathadevara Gudi".... The drive from BR hills to KGudi is simply amazing..... we have jungle lodges over here however it is very expensive.... but this place for shure is one thing i wanna go again and stay for atleast 2-3 days..... probably i will take 2-3 days off from office and go to this place again in bike.

In the middle of the forest it invites you think of yourself... a feel to dip into your mind... i saw a small bird fall from the room top and die instantly... i wish i could have saved it :-( what was that.. sit here for few hours and then you will learn a lot from nature.... the sound of birds.... monkeys all around..... every little thing catches your eyes only thing is you need some observation...

At around 5.30- 6 we decided to move back to BR hills... the roads were getting darker and also lot more scary.... we were in the middle of the forest.... But the chillness in the silent air was a feel for forth coming darkness......

Next day we started early and then again we wanted to go through the KGudi path in the early morning we got some good pictures over here.... after which we started to drive back to bangalore through the chamarajnagar road.. this is again more of moving through the civilizations ...

In the end it was a amazing feeling to have 2 friends from australia Kali and his wife Laine to have with us as pillion riders and then also sharing their thoughts ... it was also good to have some photography tips from Laine.... Hats of these guys for mixing up with the local culture sooo easily without any hicups....

At the end it was one more meaning ful trip which i enjoyed....moving closer to wilderness of nature and away from civilizations....

Team members Sripad, Gilli, Kali, Laine and myself...

Route:

Bangalore to Kgudi is around 225kms one side.

Take a left after maddur and go towards BR hills. This road is not very good but lot more beautiful from the other route. However the other route is through mysore,nanjangud, chamrajnagar and Kgudi.

Bangalore - Maddur - Malavalli - Shivanasamudra - BR hills - Kgudi - Chamarajnagar - Najangoodu - Mysore - Mandya - Maddur - Bangalore

its around 1hr from BR hills to KGudi however the distance is around 20-30kms