Shankar's Marriage

Just writing this to track the oceans' team's developments,plans,"cancelled plans" and everything possible in the eve of Nag's marriage, which is fixed (not scheduled) to be on May 23rd 2010, Sunday.

more later ....

Anjan's marriage and kemmangundi

Hi long time since last blog...may be no no issues and surprises in life..which gets converted to blogs...Jun 6th ...a great day for anji after a hard fought battle he was toasting the sucess...he waited most...marriage with pawana...i am very happy for him and wish him best in life...we had a great time at marriage and the quick trip to kemmangundi after that.

Thru this i like to wish anjan a happy marriage life.

Prashant

Road Trip in Bullet

Hi I am writing this blog to share my wonderful roadtrip experiences on my bike. We had started planning for this trip a month ago. After googling and discussions it was decided that we make our way to two of the most wonderful places on earth called wayanadand coorg.The total stretch was around 1500 km and we planned it to span 5 days starting 24 oct 2007 to 28 oct. We were 6 people with 3 bikesa bullet Thunder bird along with a couple of Bajaj Avengers and a Gypsy. I know a true bike should consist only bikes but since the trip was long one and we were going in a rainy season, to have a four wheeler was a good option.

We started the journey on 24th afternoon with 4 people including myself, irshadh, arul and jayseelan. The other two people sridhar anddinesh were supposed to join us on our way in mettur and satyamangalam. Our first destination was krishnagiri which is about260 km from chennai on NH4. NH4 is part of golden quadrilateral and its one of the well maintained highways I have seen. We stopped for dinner at ambur, a place famous for its traditional biryani. We had a wholesome meal and proceeded towardskrishnagiri. We reached krishnagiri at around 10:30 PM. The journey upto krishnagiri was pleasant so we decided to go till dharmapuri which is around 45 km from krishnagiri. I exchanged my bullet with arul for the gypsy. The road to dharmapuri was a bumpy ride and took us around 12:00 midnight to reach there.
We took 2 rooms, a small lodge costing around 500 bugs. Our next day plan was to reach satyamangalam by noon and wayanad by night.So we started early in the morning from dharmapuri at around 6 towards mettur which is around 70 km from dharmapuri. But a huge traffic welcomedus in the stretch with a beeline of lorries and buses trying to overtake one another in a road under construction. Some howwe managed to reach thopur at around 8 am. From thopur to mettur we were greeted by drizzling and misty clouds. Enriched by the climate, we moved at a decent speed enjoying the scenic beauty of places. We stopped to savour a hot cup of tea whilerain was showing his prowess for some time before claming down to drizzle.

We reached mettur at around 9:30 after visiting Stanley Resorvoir and Mettur dam on the way. Mettur is a small town surroundedmy green hils all around. Dinesh joined us from mettur and we started for Sathi or satyamangalam. The drive was pretty easy with good roads and less traffic. We reached the town at around 11:30. Sridhar was waiting to join us. It was time for some fuel for the gypsy as we had a quick lunch at Arya bhawan. During lunch we planned to get to a place called Thengumarhada Forest aftersome research by Arul. It was a reserved forest area and we had to take permission from the forest department to enter. After searching and enquiring we were able to find the forest department office. We got the permission to take only gypsy into the forest. So we parked the bikes near a Garage and headed for the place.
But to frank that place wasn't that exiting as we found only few peococks and dears. But we enjoyed the 4 Wheel drive of gypsyas it made its way thru the forest. On our way back to Garage to pick up the bikes we had chai and fish fries near Majectic Bhavani sagar dam. The dam is quite a old one built in 1955. The rain poured for an hour refreshing our senses for the next drive as we had another of Tea to add to it.
With the Bikes jusing waiting our return we started for our next destination, though the final destination wasn't decided, we thought of reaching somegood place on our way to wayanad. So we started towards a place called bannari and then proceeded towards dhimbam ghats. As westarted climbing the hair pins, the scenary around us started changing from planes to misty hills. Many thoughts weathered through the mind watching the lush greens planes from the hill top. As we proceeded, it was time for the sunset, increasing the moisture in the air making it colder and colder. After a slow ride of around 35-40 km we touched the karnatake border at around 8 pm in the night. Since we had 2 hours of drive time left, we decided to halt at gundlupet, a small town which comes in between mysore ooty highway. The proximity of ooty highway made sure that we had lot of options for accomadation
We reached gundlupet at around 10 after stopping at chamrajnagar for dinner. The road strech was horrible till chamrajnagar but from thereon the roads were better. We took a single large room for around 600 bugs at a small lodge. After a few arguements on decision to go thengumarhada, we decided to startto kalpetta, a main town of wayanad at early morning 6. It was upto me to wake up everyone at 5. Some how we were able to start on time after a cup of tea.

Our first stop on the way to kalpetta was sultan bathery (fractured name of sultan's battery as it was Ammunition depot of tipu Sultan). The rideto sultan bathery was amazing as it was thru Muthanga Wildlife sanctuary and the road was too good like M.G road in bangalore minus traffic. All alongthe route we had quite a few photo sessions, few animals and birds including a dead owl and a awesome herd of elephants. The 50 km drive was covered in 2 hrs then we stopped at hotel solar in sulthan bathery. We had a idli, utthapam and egg curry as our breakfast. Got some info from the locals about the route.
Based on gathered information, we decided to visit two places on our way to kalpetta. One was edakkal caves, a 2000 yrs old cave which has carvings on its walls and meenamutty falls.
Traversing thru road bends for around 14 kms, We reached the edakkal caves. The actual cave is around 300 feet above the parking lot and there was an option to walk or hire a 4 Wheel Drive Jeep which climbes the steep road in 10 mins and cost Rs 70 for a to and fro drive. We opted for the second one as we were freaking on one more kind of drive.The drive was too good and too shaky as it climbed to the foothills of the cave.
We climbed another 100 mts to reach the caves. The caves were really huge and with artistic carvings carved by some tribes who were leaving there few thousands year ago.One thing is for sure whether or not we know on what the place is we go click click click. It always reminds me of a best friend who was crazy aboutphoto sessions. i dont hv to name him as many can guess him :)... so after the caves, we started for our next destination meenumutty falls. We reached the place in an hour at around 11:30. There was no crowd in the place and we were amused by it. But after 3 hours, we had the answers.

Meenumutty falls is in a forest covered by huge coffee estate. As we started driving into the estate the road was getting narrow and couldn't drive anymore.We went little more further into the estate as we were approached by a boy who offered us to guide us to the falls. We were shocked to know that we need to trek 2-3 kms to reach the falls but the boy had some shortcut to that which others dont know. So there comes a business oppurtunity for the boy. We agreed to take him with us and started walking into the estate. After a walk of 10-15 mins, the forest got denser and our stuggle to walk into deep forest, the walk was more difficlut then the one of kumaraparvatha a trek place in Kukke Subramanya in karnataka.
As we reached the falls, we could hear the sound of water gushing in full throttle. This made us more exited and we started walking faster. Then came the view, a magnificint falls roaring from 300 mts highgushing to the down hils. The point we reached was a small muddy platform near the falls so all hopes of getting into the water were gone. . Soon it startedraining and our way back to the bike parking gave us all the answers on why there weren't many people are visiting the falls :).
We had butter milk being sold by a guy who had a hut in the estate. It was a refreshing after the walk. I had 6 glasses of it.. haha.. :-) We started back to the main road in the muddy stretch and a small mischap happened, my bike got struck in deep mud with a 2-3 inch thick mud on the tyres. Some how we pulled the bike out of it and reached the main road. I realised how much heavy my bike was !!!!.
After the trip to falls, we dint have any guts to visit other picnic spots like pooket lake or lakkidi view point so we skipped them.We went to kalpetta town for lunch at around 3. Had a decent lunch and decided to go to manthavady, a next town which comes on the way to our next destination coorg.The trip to manthawady was very good as the road passed thru lush green tree plantations. In these you really like to be on two wheelers rather than confined in a car.With light breeze hitting your face, keeps you refreshing the entire stretch.
We stayed at a small lodge and went to a small restaurant for lunch. Gypsy had its say now, so 3 of us went in search of a CAR mechanic and returned back to the lodge with some news!!!!....the news was the next day was a strike in 5-6 districts of kerela. So guys when you plan a trip, look into the newspapers also for local news :).So maps came out to find the nearest route to enter karnataka. The hotel manager was a nice guy and helped us in getting a route map to reach madikeri.We started at 4:30 am in the pitch dark night towards tholpettai, the border town of kerela which was aroudn 30 km from hotel. The road was good and we wereable to crosss the border at 5:30 after passing thru North Wayanad wildlife sanctuary and tholpettai wildlife sanctuary. So many sanctuaries, not easy to remember all the names
We reached a small town called kutta, at last found a garage and our gypsy was fixed temporarily, with a another cup of tea we started towards madikeri.Madikeri was around 70 km from here via gonikuppa and virajpet. We stopped at gonikuppa for breakfast. We managed to reached madikeri at around 11 pm. I stayed back at a mechanic shop to get the gypsy repaired and other guys left for Abbey falls. I had to make small sacrifice as I had seen it earlier and wehad to reach bangalore by end of the day. After the falls, we had a lunch at East End hotel. A very old hotel running from 30 years and it is housed in bighouse covered with red roof tiles called mangaluru hanchu. The lunch was very good but little costly too.
We started for mysore and made plan to visit Kaveri Nisargadhama and Bylakuppe. The road to kushalnagar was the worst road of our trip. Actually we cant call it as a road at all. Some how we reached nisargadhama at 3:30 and had a walk. It was a typical picnic spot and we had no interest in spending time there. Hence we left for our next stop, the tibetian SOS village near bylakuppe. It is a second largest tibetian settlement in india afterdharamshala. As we started getting into the town, we felt as we were in tibet, a colorful strech display tibet culture lead us to the golden temple.
The temple was marvalous and amazing example of deep rooted tibetian culture, their hardship and belief. It also has a university which teaches budddhism.We went into the temple looking around 100s of tibetian people in thier traditional lama attire. So inner part of temple was truely stunning with hugepaintings on the walls made with 100% precision. The prayer hall has 3 huge statues of buddha, a prince and a princess in a prayer mood. The totalenvironment made us to forget all the hardship of our ride i knew that nothing more can be best ending for our trip.
Back to chennai was troubling as we were struck in rain in mandya and later again from krishnagiri to chennai. So at last the trip came to an end at midnight12 on sunday night getting into the house fully wet but mind still refreshed and daring to go a road trip again.
So never miss an oppertunity for a road trip. A true road trip will definitely bring you close to the nature, culture and last but not the least, friends.

Prashi says little superstitious...........and Me too

As I was going through prashi's blog.... I came across this word "SUPERSTITIOUS" (might be spelling mistake) and my thoughts about it....
I always said, I don't beleive in superstitious... I followed it for major part of life... but one fine day I was also a superstitious boy... Those fine days were when we had a cricket tournament in diploma final year. In second year we had lost the final, but this year we (sorry I ) needed to win for lots of reason (anju being one, to showoff). I wore the same t-shirt and pant throughout the tournament. My Mom used to tell me daily after every match I will wash the clothes, but I didnot allow it...... Finally we won the Cricket tournament for first time in CS dept history.

During exams also, I used to wear the same pant, till my exams very fine... Once If my exam didnot go well, Time to change............

I always felt we are SUPERSTITIOUS "When we want to do well, and really wants to do well"......
Pants are the common superstitious items....... I think for us....... What do u say Prashi.......???

Here ends my first blog........Hurrahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

Idly,vada,dosa

here i come... with a box of idlis eating in right hand and typing this message in left :)

.... namaskara ... good evening ...... from your sapat too all oceanites here ....

atlast.....now i have a place to express all my thoughts for food (yes no compromise here), friends and others..... kuddos for creating this blog people ....

So, what do I write now ...... hmmm ... what ever it is ... it will be complete by the time I finish eating my idlies..... hahahahh.... (so only 5 mins of crap)

As I write this I get my breakup about the personal loan I have taken recently and the hidden charges are so high that I feel like calling them back now and say that I am not interested ......


with the mood I started this write up .... I think it has change now ...... I will write again later

Savi Savi Nenepu Part 2

Sorry naga using the same lines ...but its a continuation of yours....great golden college days...

I still remember the first day... we had a class in first floor and i met eshu on day one....the first impression of him was he was looking very decent and studious guy.... :) and later with many more like raghvendra, mani, imti.

It still amuses me why naga and anjan dint mingle with us in first 2 sem ....even they weren't in our first trip....donno why....its only in fift sem...we came in more close and oceans was formed....

Best parts were dwarka, movies, few nutty professors , imti's copying skills and ofcourse our blunders during exams....and practicals...

may be you all dont know i was little superstitious during exams....i always weared a same jeans pant :). .... i know i always passed my exams due to one main thing...coming to college 2-3 hours before and reading with eshu ...

Nagu used to come always prepared where chandru was opposite....

I told most of the best things but greatest funs were the trips .... each had its own memories...like chandra in trip one to kerela....dinesh and mani affair in trip kumraparvatha.....etc..

I agree that life has changed since and most of them are married except for chandru and nagu...(mani and manju wont mind i think)....and i donno why naga missed dinesha :)....

Savi Savi nenapu savira nenapu. yeda aladali

Savi Savi nenapu Savi Savi nenapu Savira nenapu, Edealadalli bachikondiruva.. nurondu nenapu.. i didn;t find a better words to start our Gang's first blog.

I still remeber those initial days when we used to sort of struggle to get to college and attend those boring classes ( some were interesting ) leaving out work and going through the rush hour traffic to college, Once I wondered ( I am sure many of us thought the same ) if this was worth but we all know what is worth today, we all know how important was that degree for us.

It was a different kind of college life, unlike the one of Day college.

Best of the days were coming soon, I think it was in 5th semester that we all got together and then the fun started.. with venu leading the way both in the class and to the hotels... i cant just stop laughing thinking about many of the incidents when the only moto was to find a new hotel and to eat.

life has changed quiet a lot since then, only chandru and me remain single everyone else busy with life.