Hoove Hoove..

In the rain

Close-up

Bright

More on flickr: vinz

 

KoDagina Cauvery (Cont’d)

Day2: (KHNH Style)

It was raining all the while, so we took our own sweet time to decide on what to do.
We even bought honey, coffee powder, pepper and cardamom from the owner. The place is famous for that right!?!

There was a waterfall nearby where we planned to go in the morning. The place being restricted (was on a private property I guess) it was really superb. The water was very cool and pure. We hanged around there for a few hours, taking snaps and collecting stones too!! ;-) Hmm...Coming to think of it, it was supposed to be displayed in B's cube. Let me check!!

Then we set off to Tala Cauvery. We played Antakshari in the Qualis on the way and it was real good fun. The plan was to cover BhagamanDala and Tala Cauvery. But by the time we reached there, it was covered in mist and we just visited the temple and came back. The trees there looked awesome in the mist-covered backdrop.

We then proceeded towards Kushalnagar and took a quick stop at Raja Seat. By that time, my travel sickness took a toll. It was re-assuring to know I was not alone. Kar also suffered from it. I quickly shopped for a lemon in the churmuri shop near the entrance of Raja Seat. One thing for sure, he will never listen to my advice again. :-) Missed eating more churmuri though.

Armed with lemon juice, in the rain, I started clicking away the flowers in the garden at Raja Seat. They were very pretty and colorful.

We had a pit stop for food and by the time we reached the Golden Temple, it was dusk :-(. Everyone had to bear my fussing about it. So couldn't take proper pics of the colorful temples and their interiors. But the place is just too good. It is very serene inside and you feel at peace with the world. The colors used inside for the wall paintings, the pillars, the carvings are very bright ones and amazingly the color combinations were totally in sync. I also bought a "Round" Chakra ;-) kind of a small wall-hanging.

We loitered around there till closing time and then went shopping in the nearby shopping complex. No prizes for guessing. It was raining again! :-) Bought a few petty things.

Then we continued on our journey back home. Started watching Sholay, commenting on the evergreen dialogues (With Kar and Ravi, no one else were interested as usual) and history of the movie and its comparison with the soon-to-be-out remake. I didn't even realize when I dozed off and when Mysore came. It was around 12.30. So we stayed back at Sandy's :-) place and slept till 5.30. Left Mysore then and reached home at around 8.30.

Am Glad to have got away from the mundane routine for a weekend and "kick off my shoes and relax". Well, it wasn't relaxing but refreshing nevertheless!!

KoDagina Cauvery

Way back in 10th standard, we had gone to Coorg/Kodagu on a class trip. The lush greenery, serene atmosphere was so enthralling; I promised myself I would go there at least one more time. I could keep up that promise this weekend. :-)

Few of our colleagues planned the trip and I readily joined. My sole aim, which I made more than clear, was to visit the Buddhist Monastery. The colors used there are simply outstanding.

We left on Friday (6th) night and as usual I slept comfortably for most part of the journey. Watched the start of the movie Aptamitra in the Qualis (It had a VCD-DVD racked up).

We reached Madikeri very early and there was a Code M situation. :-) Mist! Surrounding the place where we were to stay. It was a farmhouse with the owner conducting adventure camps. The place was named "Jungle Mounts". So we were advised to stay in the city for an hour and so and we finally reached the place at around 8.00. Breakfast was a Malnad specialty (came to know of this later at home :-)) A kind of Idli made of Rice and Coconut. Twas ok-ok. But the homemade jam was yum!

Clicked pics of nearby flowers for a while and then we started off for the half-day trek. The trek to the peak was a rough 8 kms and it was traversable for half the distance through vehicles. So we were dropped off half-way by a jeep and off we started to trek the remaining. The walk was very nice with small waterfalls in our path. We, the gals, could accomplish conquering 3/4th of the peak and so opted out of the remaining and enjoyed the chocolates and snacks. :-) We did save the apples for someone though ;-)

The trek back was really fabulous. First I, Kar and Ravi started discussing/gossiping about Hindi movies/music. :-) Second, there was a slight drizzle and by the time we realized, it was raining full-swing. It was just too lovely. But with the rain, came the leeches. Need I say more? :-(

The jeep ride back to the farmhouse was too cold!!! :-) We rode standing in the jeep facing the wind and rain. Just too good!

After lunch (paapad and pickles were the best), the instructor there had kayaking lined up for us. You can take a wild guess as to who the official photographer of the sport was!! :-) Your's truly. The first-time kayak-ers (Is there a word like that??) had fun too.

We rounded up the day with a very good game of Uno (Courtesy:Sudks) and the highlights of the game was the no. of cards Shesh had to draw (Courtesy:Sudks, Me, Bhuv, Manj), the utter confusion we faced with so many special and wild cards and their usage. If we had continued, it would surely have turned into Calvin-ball :-)

A bundle of joy

It's amazing how the arrival of someone in your life can change your world totally!

Priorities change; schedules are altered keeping him in mind, the focus of the entire family shifts. But it is truly worth it. His one smile makes my day. I come home and see everyone pampering him to the core. Needless to say, I join the bandwagon too :-)

Everything is all still and hush-hush when he is sleeping. We wouldn’t want to earn his wrath if he wakes up. Do we?

I call him grumpy (With a Capital G) He sulks like there is no tomorrow. But yet, when he makes a sad face and starts crying, your heart goes out for him. The best part, he tolerates all my gibberish and even thinks it’s a lullaby. It puts him to sleep, you see. :-)

Super aunt to the rescue!! :-))) Yeah. He is my nephew. Hardly 2 months old and 2 feet tall and its quite astonishing how he makes us all dance to his tunes already!!!!

One of my friends wished him to be prosperous and successful. Amen!

I also wish him to be happy and spread joy all around like the Christmas season (I always wanted to use that phrase!! :-D )

Meri ghar aayi ek nanhi pari.
Chandni ke haseen rath pe sawaar.

I wish there was a song as cute as this for a baby boy!

Kuch Tasveerein

A different Pottery barn :-)

mehndi rang layegi

Hariharan in concert

Sama hain Suhana Suhana

Our company had a family day last Saturday (23rd Sep). It was scheduled at KPTO, Whitefield, so was apprehensive about going so far and coming back in the night. It was an evening/night event you see. So didn't register even for Antakshari!!! But the lack of participation from our team forced us to enroll into Antakshari and DC. This resulted in spending most of the afternoons last week in preparing for the prelims and participating. Nice way to spend one week in office this way, I must say! :-D (Hey, it rhymed!!)

We lost out in DC prelims (the phrase and words to enact were tough!!), but the qualification for Antakshari pre-finals made my day. :-D [The organizers couldn't decide on the teams for the finals since there was a tie]. Guess what, we cruised into the finals. Won’t get into the details of the how-we-got-selected part right now. Let's just say one team's loss is another's gain!! ;-)

The D-Day arrived. We had to reach office by 2.00 to board the first bus to the venue. But due to unavoidable reasons, we were late!! The bus was stil there, but S and her husband offered to drop us in their car, and on the way, we even tried identifying the songs from the starting dhun, since that was our weak-point. The drive was indeed fun. :-)

We were one of the first families (Ahem!!) to arrive and so S got a gift too.[Sodexho Passes anyone??] The stage looked very attractive; after all it was of my fav color. :-) Yeah. Orange.

There were many stalls lined up - a Photo studio (Where we eventually went and took team pics. They even framed it and gave it in some very rustic-looking bags for free!! :-D), mehndi and face-painting stalls , games which reminded me of the ones that used to be a fixture in college fests, do-it-yourself-pottery-stall , and some more games to attract kids (who had actually turned up in huge numbers). Oh! How could I forget. Pani-puri and Chaats stalls. Smack!!

Soon, it was time to participate in Antakshari finals. The last time I did something like this was for our college fresher's day and it was Antakshari then too. Guess it shows that I take my Hindi movie and music knowledge too seriously!! :-)

All was well and we were leading by a comfortable margin at the end of the last but one round. But then the dreaded dhun round was the last round :-( And as expected we couldn't figure out a few and we didn't hit the buzzer (or rather raise our hands) fast enough for the rest. We came a close second (diff of 5 points!!) in the end. But the competition was indeed damn good fun. I didn't know that I could unearth long-forgotten songs too :-)

Then there was a series of dance, skits and award-giving ceremony for best engineers and team. Our Unit gave one spectacular dance and a fun-filled skit. My team-mate was one of the people to get the best Engineer award. He truly deserved it!! So a treat's on the way for us.

Our company band Omnifuse performed. Mostly hindi foot-tapping numbers and the overall performance was very nice.

The night came to a wonderful end with a concert by Hariharan. He sang many good songs - Yaadein title track, Roja Jaaneman, Chanda re, Savi savi nenapu (My Autograph) and a few Tamil songs. He also sang Telephone dhun mein and Chai chuppa chai (Hu Tu Tu) (which I dont fancy), but it’s a different feeling listening to a live show. You will end up liking it at least till the end of the show. He went away a lil early and then his troupe performed till around 10.30 and most of them were Tamil songs.

Dinner was being served in 2-3 stalls and the queue was just too long. So, we directly skipped to dessert :-D. Cake and Ice-cream!! Yum!

All in all a very fun-filled event and its good to do something totally different from work at the workplace!!

The return of the killer headaches!

Just after a few weeks!!! :-((((((((
My(yeah..its very much a part of me in recent times) migraine headache has re-surfaced. In the middle of the week!!!!! And I am still recovering from it. I HATE it.
I also hate:
*the fact that I ought to refrain from eating chocolates when I have a Migraine
*not being able to watch TV, look at the comp monitor (in that order!!)
*not being able to think straight
*the swelling in the eyes
*the feeling of nausea that is Migraine's steadfast accomplice
*not being able to sleep soundly
*being so cranky, which I am sure has irritated people around me to the core!
*not able to go out of Bangalore, which I should have been doing right now!!!

Trying out the homeopathic approach this time, which will hopefully yield a better result. At least in decreasing the frequency of its occurrence.

Warm Wishes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY dear friend. We miss you.

"I don't remember how we happened to meet each other.
I don't remember who got along with whom first.
All I can remember is all of us together...always."
- Unknown

[Thanks sush, for the lovely quote and picture]

Of Melodies, Blooms and Trivia

Land Ahoy!! (Common Myna)

Hibiscus drenched

Unknown Beauty

I am not sure which flower this is. Does anyone know?

Go Orange

The lovely Gerbera. My fav! esp. the yellow-orange one.

Himalayan glory - Bramha Kamala

Bramha Kamala bloom

My sister got this flower home the other day. I had never set eyes on it before. So unearthed a few facts about it. The interested can venture further!

The botanical name of this flower is 'Saussurea obvallata' and is usually found in the western Himalayas from Kashmir to Sikkim. It has very good medicinal value and is used by the herbal doctors there. This is the State Flower of Uttaranchal!! :-)

By the way, does any one know what the state flower of Karnataka is??!?!?

Musings

Nagme hain shikwe hain kisse hain baatein hain

Baatein bhool jaati hain...yaadein yaad aati hain..

This is exactly how I felt when I conversed with my colleague and ex-classmate yesterday while going back home.

Well, I had safely locked away the memories of those 2 years in a dark closet somewhere deep in the abyss of my mind. I also made sure I tossed away the key into oblivion.But the talk rekindled all those memories. The lost key re-surfaced and lo-and-behold, the door was wide-open!

Sigh!! Locking away memories don’t help. Do they???

Back then, I was sincere (wasn't even bunking my language classes!!- I liked reading the so called “lessons”- but that’s a different story), studious, loyal, fidgety, clumsy, easily influenceable..and oh..silly too!! :-) A few of these aspects have stubbornly persisted. Sent the rest into hibernation.

Those years taught me a lot. Won’t get into the details of it. After all, it was supposed to have been forgotten. Remember?!?!? :-D Most importantly, I learned to survive, against all odds (well, I might be exaggerating a wee bit here, but it was what I felt then!)

And off I go to recover the lost treasures of time. Adios!