The Savanal Forest Trek...

Friends, many of you might all ready know that I have shifted from Hyderabad to a place called Ujire (some 350kms from Bangalore) and I am working in a Laboratory that does engineering R&D, focusing on rural needs, which is partially linked to solar technologies (If interested, please read my previous posts to know more on my career shift). This post is about the forest exploration that I did along with some of my colleagues as part of my work.

Based on the recent census, the total world tiger population is around 3,500 and half of them are in India. If you look at the statistics provided by the census people, i.e. the rate at which the tiger population is reducing, I guess we may not have tigers at all in other 10 years. Incidentally, a forest that is around 15- 20 Kms from where I presently work has more than 50 tigers.

Our Lab has great interest pertaining to human-wild animals based projects for quite some time; some projects involve repelling the wild animals away from the agricultural lands, while some involve protecting them from the humans. With respect to projects related to tiger protection, our Lab has interest in providing the technology solution. Precisely, the idea is to set up a web cam that is powered by solar panels in the forest in some location which continuously captures the video and sends it to the internet (live video streaming and stuff). An alternate plan is to set up an intelligent still camera that could capture pictures at some instances and send it over to the web. I am open to discuss about the technical aspects about the project, but for now let me tell you more about our today's mini expedition.

Our expedition started at around 9:30 from some where near Ujire bus stand. By 'our', I mean Ravi (the project lead) , Akshata (engineering student - intern in the lab) and me. We had hired a jeep, which has a four wheel drive that could go on tough terrains comfortably. The jeep driver was a very friendly person by the name Venkatesh. The agenda of the expedition was to do an initial study of the forest and identify some places where the camera could possibly be placed. Before entering the forest, we filled some forms to get permission from the forest officer in Belthangady (5kms from Ujire) to visit the forest. To our advantage, Akshata's dad had once served the Savanal forest (btw that's where the tigers reside) as the forest officer, hence all the formalities concerning the entry to the forest went fairly smooth.

Savanal forest is around 10kms from Belthangady. It is part of Kudhremukh wild life sanctuary. The forest is filled with greenery and water flowing paths all the way. Considering the fact that it is a heavy rain-fall area, we were very lucky that the sky was clear and it didn't rain at all the whole day. I must say that I had a great day for learning photography. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Akshata's dad's close friend from Belthangady, Mr. Vasanth along with the forest guide, Mr. Krishnappa joined us to help us explore the forest. While talking to them we could feel that they would have roamed around the forest thousands of times. They took us to many places in the forest where the animals generally hang out, like one spot in specific is called as SirigaLa Gundi which is an amazing water falls surrounded by rocks. The height of the water falls is some thing like that of a three story building and the pond (perhaps a water basin) formed by the water falls tempts any water lovers to get in and swim, however we hadn't got extra dress hence we didn't get in. We spent more than an hour near SirigaLa gundi as the view of the water fall was totally breathtaking. Besides SirigaLa gundi we came across many other water falls as well. The water from these falls tastes so good that I feel like the water I drink daily is utterly tasteless. While exploring the forest, we could see foot prints of many animal, in few places tiger's as well which gave us good indication of their hang out places. We identified few locations where we could set up our cameras to start with. As this was planned as a day visit we didn't venture further deep into the forest, where the possibility of finding the tigers is very much high. One more encouraging thing is that some of us had mobile network in the forest as well which is a good news for us to set up communication link, though we have to set up a private wireless line of sight network till a point where there is decent internet connectivity.

The only irritating part of our trip were leeches, they just got on to our legs and sucked hell of a blood from us. Apart from that we had a fantastic trip to the forest, which ended with all six of us having a proper heavy south Indian meal at a vegetarian hotel in Belthengady.

The new job...

This post is actually a mail I sent to some of my friends few days after I shifted to Ujire (28th September 2010), I am posting it in this site to have some sort of continuity...

Hello friends, its quite some time I have updated some of you on things I have been doing and trying to do. Here is a small write up on the same.

After quitting GE, I relocated to Banglore to pursue my dreams of starting a company in solar energy domain. Before I go more on that, I must say GE was very kind to me from the day I joined - they took me even when I didn’t turn up on my joining date - didn’t ask me my degree certificates after I joined - paid me two months salary for which I wasn't required to work - its an awesome company. Anyway, I am trying to get over GE and focus on renewable energies.

After coming to Bangalore I had great fun in hanging out with my friends in IISc, friends near my home, catching up with my relatives in some family functions and also had super awesome fun in Malaysia. I was at absolute leisure , spending my typical day in watching TV, following mail chains, social networking via facebook, orkut and twitter, reading some arbit novel and various other time pass activities. While enjoying my paid holidays, I indulged myself in a small project that involved illuminating a garden by LEDs, which had to be powered through solar energy and yeah, I also visited the India’s largest solar PV (PhotoVoltaics) based electricity generation plant. Well, I did try to educate my self on solar energy technologies by reading books, talking to people and of course through Internet.

I realized that starting a business in solar PV would require hands on experience, that is to have field experience. For this purpose, I applied for a field engineer job in a few companies. I was lucky to get connected to an IISc professor through a close friend of mine. That professor hooked me up with some people in this company called Selco, which is doing great work in rural electrification through solar. Fortunately things worked out and they hired me to do both R&D and Field work in their incubation centre (Lab), which is located in Ujire (350kms from Bangalore).

I was quite excited to work in a small town, which happens to be a starting point for millions of trekking spots in Western Ghats. Kudremukh, Jamalabad fort, Bandaje falls, Anadka falls, Arabi falls etc are some trekking spots actually viewable from the incubation centre itself. Ujire is located in a very strategic point. Its 7kms from Dharmasthala, which is the most visited pilgrimage centre in Karnataka; hence there are umpteen number of buses from Bangalore and various other places.

I joined the company yesterday (27th Sept ‘10). I work in a lab, which is in the 4th floor of an engineering college called SDMIT. This college building stands out in terms of its Architecture, just like an European in an Indian gathering. The buildings in this town mostly has tailed roof adorned with 19th century architectural style, while this college building is totally of 21st century make, with glass all around and stuff. As per accommodation is concerned, I am right now staying in a lodge, will soon be shifting to SDMIT faculty quarters.

The company operates for six days a week, and gives 10 days holidays for various festivals. The lab has three full time employees including me. Dr. Anand and Sandeep are the other two. Anand is my boss, who is also the head of this lab. He seems like a very cool person. He has done some quite adventures stuff in his life. Like this one, after doing his BTech from IIT Madras (1992) he got a 10 acre land in this place and started farming. He was assistant professor in IISc ASTRA for some time. Anyway there is so much to tell about him, will tell you some other time. Sandeep is my ‘go-to’ person here. He completed his masters in Social Work (MSW) few months back and joined SELCO. He interacts with the villagers to find out their problems and tries to provide the technological solution offered from the company end. If there isn’t any solution available, he communicates the same to the lab, and the lab works on it. The solution developed by the lab is given to the villagers free of cost and the same will be monitored for its reliability and usability. If the solution is found to be reliable and robust then it will enter the product line of the company, which will be manufactured in bulk and later sold at affordable price. Here comes my role, I will be part of the team which develops the solution and do the first time installation at villager’s house. Well, you might be wondering who else is in the team here? This lab has always been blessed with some really smart interns from various universities, which includes MIT, Cambridge, Stanford and also over own VTU. Right now with us is Sam, He is doing his Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from Cambridge university, UK (remember Newton of Newton’s law of motion - he is alumni of the same University). The lab also gets few inters from the college, who are selected based on their performance in the tests and interviews conducted by Anand. I am yet to meet this gang.

This lab is a junk yard. There are so many things here but nothing is in any specific place, probably I have to apply some of the lessons I learnt in GE to make this place more convenient to work. However, the best part of the lab is the view from the windows. I could see greenery all around. I can see places I have trekked and the places I aspire to trek. There are Hills, water falls and what not. In fact, I bought a DSLR camera before leaving Bangalore so that I could capture all these stuff. I have pasted the link of some snaps that I took yesterday and today below, do check it some time.

so guys, here I am all alone, chasing for the unknown, with a mind of my own:)

http://picasaweb.google.com/isiganesh/UjireMyNewHome?authkey=Gv1sRgCMGQwd2a5bnUfA#