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

Dirty Budget - 2008

Well for quiet some time i wanted to write on the indian budget for 2008 -2009 ... i am not an economist but its more of expressing my anger towards politics which doesnot yield anything at the end.....

I read this fascinating thing of allocation of Rs.60,000 Crore debt waiver for farmers.... after reading this i dont know should i laugh at our stupid finance minister or should i cry at the horrible mistakes our ministers are making and we have to deal with it..... There were quiet few things here....

Whoz money is this? Its ours..... tax payers money.... worst thing which strikes me listening to this is what is the minister trying to encourage? What is it thats been achived by waiving the debt? Looks like you are trying to push one of the most hardworking community of india towards free money and encouraging no work.... looks like there is serious flaw in our system where in we cannot question the stupid allocation without any yield....

I am not against farmers... what i want to stress is rather than waiving the debts why cannot this money be invested in agricultural technology or any other means were in we can encourage the farmers to increase the agricultural yield? Why cannot the government think of putting up the schemes like a tractor for a village... which could be used by one and everyone under the village panchayat administration as an eg..? What kind of idiotic budget is this.... looks like this huge amount is put in drain..... nothing is done for long term.... and there is no returns for this investment... i dont think any economist will support such moves at any cost....

Mr. Finance minister... chidambaram what is it i got after paying almost 1lakh to the government of india as tax? An IT exemption which is increased from the current 1.1 lakh to 1.5 lakh? You are not even able to control the infliation which has raised to an all time high of 6% and neither i see any improvements in the current infrastructure nor any steps towards holding the economical growth which is heading towards a slowdown world wide.... shame on you ....

China....

Its quiet some time since i updated my blog.... well one main reason was all the blogs are blocked in china and i was on a business visit to china.... No doubt china is far ahead of india in terms of economy and growth however this time i could get a feel of a what is lacking in china.... the main thing we enjoy the freedom of speech is not there in china... no individual person is allowed to speak against the government.... well probably this might work well under certain conditions also it might be good if there is no corruption... otherwise probably this system will be a mess... also i dont think the system of communalism will work in a place of more intellectuals with individual thoughts and who love and respect each others freedom... hence forth this system might never work in india... however the amount of progress they have achieved in recent times is simply amazing there are quite a lot for us indians to learn from our hard working neighbours....

Its not that we are not hardworking but there is a lot of "chalta hai" attitude in our country which we need to change.... probably this is one important factor which we need to focus atleast for the next generation.... any way right now this is not the thing i wanted to pin down...

well 15 days in china was a great experience was overloaded with work... was very busy however this time i had planned better and had taken some MTR ready food for survival as a vegeterian.... also this time i could figure out atleast some 5-6 indian reustarants in shangai.... the best thing was the amazing food at the punjabi dhaba with the live, india vs australia final cricket match that was been displayed on a big screen with lots of indians watching in an unknown country and india managing to win the thrilling match.....

The best of the experiences were staying in one the worlds tallest and shangai's tallest hotel ..... my room was in the 82nd flood and one side of which was complete glass.... well tats a spell bound experience every night i used to sit in front of the glass and used to have a look at the world outside.... everything looks very tiny :-) the night lights used to make you loose urself .... one thing i dreamed from this height was an open window to feel the breeze at this height and the 2nd thing was to do a bungi jump from this height.... wow what an experience it would have been :-)

The last thing which fasinated me was travelling in one of the world's fastest train :-) 430kmph... maglev trains..... a distance of 50-60kms is covered in just 5-7min... well the speedo meter just raises from 0-430 and starts desending back.... i was imagining the same b/w bangalore and tumkur ;-) it would just take around 5 min from bangalore to tumkur and imagine anywere within karnataka would be with in 1hr reach :-) wow.... it thrills man..... this would be the future of furthur contrasting the world :-)

500 Kms Drive........

After watching "Galipata" movie i wished... i would go to kodachadri again... last time i visited kodachadri in summer.... however not many of the team members were ready for the same and i had to switch to new plan at the last moment.... Well planned for a drive towards shivanasamudra via kanakpura, muttatti and Cauvery fishing camp area... well well that was a blessing in disguise.....

I started very early in the morning at around 4 from my home... after a refreshing bath and a small pooja.... picked up friends and started by 5 and started moving towards the kanakpura road..... It started raining at around 6 it was simply what we wanted.... it was amazing.... the new laid empty roads and huge trees on both sides of the road along with rain... the perfect condition for a drive....

After we reached kanakpura we need to take a left towards Cauvery fishing camp... This stretch is simply amazing..... a feel of freshness in the air... dried leaves.... all along ..... it was perfect scenic beauty..... the sign of how to come out of sarrowness in life.... the trees had just shed their old leaf and were getting ready for the new ones...... what i wondered was can the trees really forget the attachment it had with the old leaf, when new ones come? I stopped my car and came out to have a feel of the air.... had a small walk on the empty roads..... on bare foot... wanted to feel the sweetness of the moist ground....... Some when i come across such places i love my freedom and independence...... the most..... i like to be left alone........ but my friends always make me realize that i am with them ........

We reached cavery fishing camp and enquired with the authorities over there regarding fishing.... wooow... its not something which will fit into my pocket........ we need advance booking in bangalore and also its 5k per head for one day...... didn't feel like spending so much for man made things...... we drove another 1km ahead of fishing camp and then we found a spot good for ourselves to feel the beauty of river cavery ... Well getting into water could be very dangerous.... and this place is full of rocks...... also they have put up a board saying there are crocodiles in these places..... however it was drizzling a bit.... i had a small walk in the rains along the roads.... trying to sink into the situation what i was experiencing..... i wanted to spend some time sitting on the banks....left alone....

The trees along the banks of the river were beautiful..... we continued in this road and then reached Malavalli... here we had our breakfast and then started towards shivanasamudra.... its around 27kms from here..... it was not in its best of form however it had its own silence and beauty hidden in it..... and again a spot easily accessible and badly spoiled by throwing of plastics and all other non bio-degradable materials all around.... it hurts a lot when we come across such places...... however i traced some spots were in i could go however it would be bit risk to be taken to go to these places.... but felt would be worth going there........would be enjoying that risk......

The road between malavalli to shivanasamudra and from there again back to somnathpur is simply horrible.... i was totally exhausted driving in these roads....After shivanasamdra we went towards somnathpur.... i had been to this place once and remembered the beautiful temple..... This temple is one example of structural brilliance of monuments in india....... Its not just difficult but looks impossible that such carvings were made by hand on stones..... amazing is one word to explain the same......

From somnathpur we reached mandya and took the route towards bangalore... We reached back bangalore at around 10... all in all it looked to me like non stop drive from 4 -10 in the night almost 500kms in all and every moment of which was throughly enjoyed by me..... i would love to drive .... however i wanna visit this cavery fishing camp spot again probably alone... or probably on a bike :-) wanna try out this sooon....

I wanna give one message in all my blogs of visiting various places please don't spoil the beauty of these places.... be a sensible citizen .... try to keep the places clean.... don't throw plastics around.....

Hogenkal Falls......

Planned to drive to hogenkal with friends on an early sunday morning.... had heard a lot about hogenkal falls but never got opportunity to visit... Well since it was more of an unplanned trip i didn't even fill fuel for my car thought would fill up in the morning.... well bad luck struck in the early morning it self, my car stopped near netkalappa circle without fuel.... i managed to find petrol bunk which was open for 24hrs and some how with some difficulty managed to get around 2lts of petrol.....

We wanted to start at 5 however we started at aroun 7... hogenkal is around 170kms via hosur,dharmapuri route however there is a shorter rout which is around 140kms for which you need to take a right as soon as you get down from the flyover in hosur... however this road is not very great since its a single road...but you can avoid lots of traffic.....

We managed to reach hogenkal at around 11... the place looked overcrowded that was a big turnoff for me..... it has become a thought for me that i have started hating places where in the human inflow is high.... i have good reasons for the same and which was justified immediately.... Felt very bad that even after charging around 100rs for the parking,village panchayat development and the entry fee i didn't see any steps thats been taken in order to improve the beautiful place.... if it continues in this way the beauty of hogenkal would not last long and it would be a big dump of plastics all around......

4 of us got ourselves a teppa(a small circular shaped boat ), in which we need to go in order to have a look at the falls..... Well to be frank i didn't like this place at all at first instance and the only reason was the level at which its been exploited.... you could see people eating and throwing paper plates everywhere.... we could see people drinking liquor in the small boats and then throwing the plastics into the river..... i felt its insane to have such people at such beautiful places we need to have very strict laws to avoid these people exploiting the same.... felt very bad looking at the plight of such a beautiful place......

The basic thing is how responsible are the civilians to maintain such a beautiful place, why does this happen only in india.... why don't everyone understand that these places are very special... and needs to be taken care..... felt very sad....

however i plan to visit this place very soon again however this time i would go very early in the morning and also probably on a week day in order to avoid all the humans..... i need to explore this place a lot more, like need to get into the water a lot more and also i need to go around and explore on top of the falls and stuffs.... in one word this was a spectacular place being spoiled at its best.... and one main reason is its accessibility.... to everyone.....

We took a shorter route on our return and were back to bangalore pretty early..... and one main reason for the same is just after looking at so many people on a weekend we straight away decided we gonna come back again ........and on a weekday....

Other things which attracted the most was a small kid who was sleeping in the middle of the river on a small rock... we remembered the movie "tare zameen par" when we saw this kid in his own world... sleeping on the rock and playing in the water was just wondering what would be the kid thinking in his mind....... and the other thing was small kids diving from the height of around 30feet from the huge rocks for mere 5 bucks ...felt very bad...as the risk involved was very high.... felt bad that people enjoy such stuffs putting a kids life in danger for a mere 5bucks.... :-(

Lots of things could be changed.... but its only like how much we wanna do.... nothing is gonna happen until we take the initiative to do something rather than just blame the government...for not doing anything.....

Route:

Bangalore - Hosur - Dharmapuri - Hogenkal -- 170kms
Around 3hrs....... drive... Return take a left after 5kms from hogenkal and then drive for around 140km and reach hosur....

Team: Poorna,Loki,Shilpi and prabodh..... with my baby swift :-)