As a little boy...

Today while watching a movie, I happen to become bit nostalgic, in fact curiously nostalgic. The movie was about two kids of age eight. This movie made me think about my earliest childhood days, the days I don't exactly remember but I do recollect few things, in parts, in pieces, in a chaotic manner though. Conversation with mom and dad helped me recollect and also to an extent appreciate some events. This post is about those two years of my life, in a place called Gulbarga, which is located in the Northern side of Karnataka state.

I was six when we moved to Gulbarga. I had completed Lower Kindergarten in some small school in Bangalore. If you wish to know, Gulbarga is lot different compared to Bangalore. Its fairly under developed place - I dont think there was a single tarred road when I was there. People speak Kannada language with a different accent - its actually nice to hear them speak. Mondays were very auspicious, so auspicious that my school had holiday on Monday rather than on Sunday. Things like that. I don't think I experienced  difference between Gulbarga and Bangalore much - as I was too much of a mama's boy back then.

I was admitted to this school called St. Mother Teresa school. It was a new school but had quite good strength. I had to cross a railway track ever day to go the school. Mom use to take me and bring me back from  the school. She says that I didn't like school, not because it was far, but because I didn't like studying nor doing home work and stuff. A neighbor's daughter was my class mate and she (the lady) had become friends with my mom. I vaguely remember attending a party at her super big house which some how comes  in my early morning dreams. I also remember a pigeon in their place. I some times wonder that I would meet them some day by total chance and perhaps end up talking to them for hours - just a feeling.

My sister was admitted to a different school which was considered as a really good girl's school, but it was far from home. Dad decided to rent a house on the other side of the railway track so that the distance to my sisters school and also my school would reduce. Indeed that was a very good move as I made more friends in that locality. Moms says that she was happy about shifting to a better house, she talks about that house and our then neighbors once in a while.

Among few things that I remember very well is about my first cycle, getting me that cycle was considered as the greatest victory of my mom over my dad, but recently she surpassed it - we got renovation done at our place, most importantly the kitchen. I don't remember exactly know how I felt after getting the cycle, must have felt damn good, must have been one of the best moments, but I do remember dying to go home from school as fast as I could so that I cycle on the fields. I remember deliberately skidding, doing stunts and ripping with that cycle- that was kind of liberating, probably the first time I experienced a sense of solitude.

Another thing I will never forget is the Holi celebration in Gulbarga. Our neighbors, taking complete liberty rather more of authority,  just barged into our place in the early morning to apply colours on us. That was a real culture shock for us - as, such things used to happen only in Television programs. I remember nearly swimming in holi water for rest of the day. I remember to have had great time that day. I also vaguely remember telling my mom about  the whole experience - Knowing her, I think she would have scolded me for being so crazily involved .

Like any parents, my parents were also very excited in capturing things that I did. We didn't have a camera then but we had a Tape-recorder to record voice. I remember reciting stories, rhymes and many more which were recorded with great enthusiasm by my mom and dad. They had great fun in listening to those recordings again and again. It seems I used to demand for new toys for every recording - bloody business minded boy I was back then itself.

I remember few things about the school. Fighting, I mean wrestling, was the only sport most of us indulged in. I remember quite well that we had series of clashes after having lunch. I remember we having sports day as well. That was perhaps my first experience in winning something. I had got a book and a small tiffin box for coming second in a race. One of the weirdest thing, that I still wonder, is about the picnic that we went from the school. Can you guess where they took us to? Zoo -No, a hill - No, a water fall - No! We went to Central Jail. I faintly remember roaming around the jail seeing the criminals. I also remember having packed food with my other school mates and teachers under a huge tree. I had few friends, perhaps one or two in my class, with whom I was during the trip. I remember one more thing, that was regarding the school annual day function. I was part of a group dance, I must have also practiced for it but on that day of function my costumes (dance uniform) were missing because of which I wasn't allowed to perform. I remember being very disheartened about it and hated the whole function, especially after seeing the dance in which I was suppose to perform.     

Dad took us to many places in north Karnataka during our stay at Gulbarga. One place I remember in particular is Gol Gumbaz which is in Bijapur. Its a tomb by an Islamic ruler in which you can hear echos of any sound you make seven times. That was a very amusing thing to me back then. Dad use to take us out every Sunday evenings for movies or to places of interest, however I hardly remember any place in Gulbarga except a lake called Appan kere. I could recollect that lake immediately while seeing google maps today.

I perhaps remember little more than what I have written here but those would require little extra digging. In this fast moving times, where we are too indulged in our day to day activities and very much in our future, a bit of distraction, of remembering the past, especially those times we hardly think can be very joyfully interesting. I must say that I got strange satisfaction in digging about this part of my childhood, I have now developed some kind of an aspiration to visit Gulbarga, explore the place we lived in and see how it is currently.

        

GOA, here we come!

Yesterday I came back to Bangalore from Goa. This was my fifth trip to Goa. This trip was different in many ways compared to my previous visits there. This article is about the trip to Goa and how I think it’s an epic trip of my life.

Few months back while chatting with a friend of mine from the mathematics department, IISc, I came to know that Jonathan Fernandes, an another friend of mine from the same department was planning to go to his home, which is located in a village in Goa, by cycle from here (Bangalore). I was deeply thrilled the moment I heard the idea. I met Jonathan in next couple of days to know more about his plan. He told me that he had once made a promise to himself that if he gets admit to a PhD program in the US universities then he would cycle or perhaps even walk all the way to Goa. Fortunately when I met him that day he had already got admits from two universities, which meant he was ON for the Goa expedition. I expressed my interest towards the expedition along with some insights on going about it. I also told him that I hadn’t cycled for years and mentioned that don’t possess a cycle. He was glad to know about my enthusiasm towards the expedition and expressed the same. In couple of weeks time he got a sports cycle called Shwinn sportera sports, a hybrid cycle, which costs eighteen thousand rupees, just to do the Goa expedition. Well, thanks to a close friend of mine who was ready to lend me his sports cycle (Trek 3700) whenever I wanted. With that, Jon and I did three to four expeditions from March to May ’11, which includes Bangalore – Savandurga- Bangalore (150kms), Bangalore – Chennai (350kms), Bangalore – Nandhi – Bangalore (120kms) and also not to forget the 10kms cyclathan, in which Jon had his first fall from the cycle. Another friend from Physics dept was with us in couple of these expeditions. Besides these expeditions, we did couple more separately with our other friends respectively. It was pretty good fun doing all those cycling trip, it exposed us from possible adversities that one could encounter while cycling long distance. The best thing about those expeditions was that it built great confidence in us to take up the idea which we conceived with little or no thinking, or rather what is perceived by many as madness.

After encountering many unavoidable interrupts to the Goa plan we could finally leave Bangalore on June 3rd. The next paragraphs of this write up is precisely the ride report of our epic Bangalore – Goa cycle journey (600plus kms), which lasted for five days.

At 3AM (on June 3rd 2011), I called Jon from Mekri circle, with one hand holding my cycle handle and the other holding my mobile phone, “Hello, Jon! Are you ready? I am 10 minutes away from the institute “. Jon replied” oh, is it? I will be ready in some time, just got up, come over to my room”. Well, after all the last minutes of preparation, which actually lasted for two hours, we started our journey from the mathematics department with a neat snap of us. Though we had earlier decided to have a good sleep before the journey, neither of us could manage to have even two hours of ordinary nap.

We started the journey with really great energy levels; in fact the first 20kms was covered in less than 40mins I guess. By the time we cycled 35- 40kms we felt drowsy, hungry and I felt like crapping. Thankfully we saw a neat restaurant called Kamat upahar which was just beside a big petrol pump. We had some good food there, but realized later that it was an overpriced restaurant. I guess having a neat lavatory facility made it a good choice for many travelers on that road (NH4). I did take a power nap to make myself fresh while Jon was reading the newspaper. At that point a thought of taking a nap for at least an hour had entered our mind. The time spent at the Kamat restaurant was not eventful as there was a dispute in the bill which led to a minor clash between the hotel staff and us. Though the dispute got resolved in our favor, it was kind of sad that I had to be part of the ugly debate. Anyway, leaving that thing apart, we crossed Tumkur by around eleven or so. The sky was cloudy, weather was very pleasant, must say that it was just good enough for cycling long distance. Jon and I indulged in a few discussions while cycling. It was good. When there was a great mismatch of speed we decided to cycle solo, during one of the occasion when I was lagging by a kilometer or so I met this middle aged or perhaps little older person by name Uday Shankar who was traveling towards a place called Gubbi by an old scoter. He started off by asking me about the expedition and later on with my personal details. I answered all his questions with fair accuracy as he sounded like good man and a man with appreciation for adventure. Not just that he was good, he turned out be a man with great generosity. He requested us to have lunch at a mess which he runs. Jon and I were very pleased with the offer and decided to have our first lunch of the trip at his mess, which was a very awesome south Indian meal. Incidentally we were offered tea just before reaching his mess. We were overwhelmed by the treatment we got in Gubbi.

Before we left Gubbi, Uday connected us to a friend of his in Tiptur who could provide us an accommodation for our night stay. Uday came from a much respected family which was/is involved in village welfare for many decades. We thanked Uday for all that he did to us and continued our journey with a filled belly. By around 3PM or so we were feeling very drowsy as I told you earlier that we couldn’t manage to have a good sleep before the start of the trip. We took our cycles into some unknown farm where there were many coconut trees just beside a paddy farm. We collected the fallen dry coconut tree branches to make a bed which was effective in supporting us an hour long nap. Jon, also managed to crap somewhere away from the farm to make himself better shaped for the rest of the journey.

We left that place hoping that we could reach Tiptur before sunset. We cycled at a rate of 20 -25kms/hr or so after taking rest at that farm. The road was flat and the weather was awesome, what else could have stopped us? Well, my cycle back tyre got punctured when we were 30kms from Tiptur. Jon had gone ahead of me and his cell was switched off. I was kind of apprehensive on going about it. I have been carrying a puncture kit in all my previous expeditions but never was in a situation to actually use it. This time I had to. I got good assistance from few villagers who were around. I requested a guy going on a motorbike to look out for a cyclist and inform about the situation when he meets him. Jon stopped and called me back after 20 minutes, that is just after he came to know about the situation, he wanted to come over to help me but I could nearly fix the puncture with help of the villagers by then. I thanked those villagers and had a chat with them for a while. I actually felt good to go through that experience, though I was little freaked out for a while when the puncture actually happened. After I met Jon I shared my experience with him up to a minute detail, with a bit of pride :)

We reached Tiptur by 8:15. Uday’s friend was waiting for us near his shop in Doddapete. He took us to Jaydeva student’s hostel (AKA Jayadeva Vidyarthi Nilaya) where we had our dinner and later crashed. The facility was decently good, with fan, bed sheets and provision to charge our mobile phones. We had rassam and sambar for our dinner which was again pretty good.

The second day started at about 5:30AM with a plan to cycle till Shimoga, which is about 140kms from Tiptur. We reached the first destination for the day Kadur which is about 70kms from Tiptur by 10:30AM. The route was pretty flat with a few climbs and descent. I must say that Arasikere, a small town which came on our way to Kadur, has a wonderful lake. We took good number of pictures near the lake. Sri Vinayak Café at Kadur turned out as the best place to have food in our entire trip. We had chow chow bath, dosas , idlies and coffees there. The server of the café was very good in invoking desire in us to have so many dishes. We couldn’t just stop until we were actually full.

The result of heavy breakfast was a unplanned nap. We identified a plantation, where they grew Mango and guava fruits, somewhere nearby Kadur to rest for nearly two hours. It was a good sleep below small trees which were just about our height and with fruits hanging. Jon didn’t have as much good sleep as I did as he was irritated by some bugs and flies. I become insensitive to the world once I catch up with a good sleep hence didn’t get affected much. The plantation people were gracious; they gave us some mangos and guava when they saw us up. We left that plantation by 2:30 or so and cycled towards Tarikere at a good pace. We had an Ice-cream each along with jack fruit at Tarikere. Reaching Shimoga (about 70 kms from Kadur) was pretty comfortable as the roads were very good and fairly even. I had talked to a cousin of mine, who had a vacant house in shimoga, to give us the access for the night’s stay while we were at Tiptur itself. At my cousin’s fairly sophisticated house we managed to wash our cloths with the help of a washing machine and also had hot water bath. After freshening up, we had our dinner somewhere near the city bus stand.

The plan for the third day was to reach Jog falls, which is about 100kms from Shimoga. We were pretty confident that we would make it by four or so. The day began with us leaving my cousin’s house at 6:30AM. It was kind of drizzling when we left. The sky was gloomy; there was a fair chance of heavy rain. We were never de-motivated because of rain, unlike a hot sunny weather. The route to sagara, which is about 70kms, was very uneven; we had both climbs as well as descent. Thanks to neat gear arrangements in these sports cycles, we could adjust the gear sets at our convenience so that we could apply power to peddle at our capacity. Of course, during steep climbs we had to totally exert all the energy that we could and during descent it was just a matter of showing directions to the wheels. Jon’s cycle’s back tyre got punctured when we were about 40kms from Sagara near a small village called Shivalli. Jon and I fixed the puncture near a mechanic shop, which had a compressor that we used to fill in air. The villagers were amazed looking at us; I mean we looked like people of a different country, with the helmet, our sports attire, cycling bags and stuff aiding to the perception. The kids of the village apparently had great fun watching us fix the puncture using our puncture kit. They even congratulated us when the puncture was fixed and wished us good luck just when we left. Besides fixing the puncture at that place we had our breakfast as well in a pretty decent restaurant. Jon had Dosas in nearly all the place we had breakfast during the trip, I did as well have couple of dosas at that place.

Just 6kms or so from that village where we fixed the puncture, Jons cycle got punctured again, this time it was his front tyre. I was cycling ahead of Jon hence an automobile traveler on that road had to inform me about the situation. Jon was waiting for me as I had the puncture kit. Jon was little unhappy about the fact that I had put on my head phones to listen to music when the puncture happened, he called loudly but I was thoroughly indulged in listening to music from my mobile phone. We were on a road which goes inside a forest region. We were just wondering on going about it, a young man stopped by us and enquired about the situation. While we were talking to him we got an idea to actually remove the front wheel from the cycle and take it to the compressor shop. Jon requested that young man to take him to the compressor shop; however the young man took Jon to one more place which was much nearby compared to the earlier one. Jon returned very quickly compared to what I expected. We thanked the young man for not just dropping Jon at that place where he could fix puncture and most importantly fill air but also bringing him back. At that point we realized the importance of carrying a bigger air pump. Though we were carrying a small pump, we found it too difficult to fill air up to the required levels. After that incident we kind of cycled with much care on bad terrains. We reached Sagara at round 3:00PM. The lunch at Sagara was pretty good. After taking more than one half break, we continued. We were totally drenched by the time we reached Jog. The last descent which was about 2kms was a kick ass ride, we would have probably ripped at about 50kms/hr or even more than that. That gave a really great feeling. The whole route to Jog from Shimoga was beautiful. We saw mountains, greenery, lakes, especially those lakes which had lotus plants were totally wonderful. Besides punctures, the other reason for our slow progress was because of our fetish for taking pictures. During the whole trip, we never missed an opportunity in taking pictures at nice places.

We reached Jog falls at around 6:30PM. The falls was not at its best. The water was much lesser than what I had seen during my earlier visits to Jog. What made us feel great was that we had completed more than half the distance of our trip. Yes, reaching Jog was a significant millstone of the journey.

We stayed at youth hostel, which is about half a kilometer from the falls. The accommodation at youth hostel was very good for the payment of hundred rupees we made. It’s highly recommended for those who are on a limited budget trip.

The fourth day began pretty late. We were very tired after cycling the previous day to Jog; hence we slept for more than eight hours. Though we had covered just about hundred kilometers, we felt that it was lot tougher than the other two days where we covered nearly 140kms each. We had our breakfast at Mayura restaurant, the same place we had our dinner previous night. At about 8:45 or so, after taking couple of pictures of the falls, we started the last stretch on NH206, which ends at Honavara. This stretch is one helluva route, it’s bloody awesome. We cycled across several hills. The whole route is Ghat section. So many climbs and so many descents, don’t remember how many we passed. In midst of all these, Jon’s back break got jammed. That was kind of depressing. We tried to fix it with whatever little tools we had. At a village called Gerusoppa, which is about 30kms from Jog, we request for oil and grease from a mechanic who had a shop there. The breaking system became little better because of the efforts we put at Gerusoppa. After that bit of repair, we continued cycling, even though it was raining heavily.

Jon and I had many discussions, debates and perhaps on a few occasion we indulged in a heated argument as well, on various things, not always on the trip issues, mostly on other general topics. One interesting discussion that we got into was while cycling from Gerusoppa to honnavara, regarding the statistically observed asymmetry of hair length between men and women, in relation to evolution theory. The discussion further lead to other observed asymmetries between men and women, like sense for direction, strength, beauty and also about the culinary skills. I remember during this stretch, we cycled just next to next, while it was raining heavily, and our argument progressing without any stoppages. I must tell Jon that I greatly enjoyed being engaged in all those discussions, during this trip as well as during our earlier trips too. Before we could logically conclude the discussion we reached Honavara, it was about three then.

We spent hardly half an hour or so at Honavara. We had idly vada and coffee at Kamath restaurant. The plan was to reach Gokarna, which is about 60kms from that place. We were on the legendary NH17, which goes on the coasts of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra. We reached Kumta, which is about 22kms from Honavara, in less than 45mins. We changed our plan after finding the route to be very flat. We decided to complete Karwar which is about 70kms from Kumta. We ripped hard, it was great fun to cycle at a deadly speed, making the automobile look slower, however that didn’t last for long. Soon we encountered hills that invariably reduced our speed to less than 12km/hr or so. We decided to settle to Ankola, which is 30kms before Karwar. Reaching Ankola wasn’t an easy thing either; we had to cycle in the night, while it was raining continuously, with a dim cycle light to help us maneuver on a road that was dominated by heavy duty trucks. That was little unsafe but we weren’t left with options. We reached Ankola by around nine, I guess. Thankfully the very first hotel we enquired gave us the accommodation at a reasonable price after the hotel person listened to our adventuresome story. The hotel room looked good in the first go; only later Jon realized the presence of bed bugs that kind of ruined his sleep. I had a good sleep though.

There was nothing much to plan for the fifth day. We were about 100kms from our final destination. Jon wanted to have lunch at his place, which looked little ambitious to me. We started our final day at 7:30AM from the hotel. The road continued to amaze us with variety of landscape through out the journey. The mountain on our way to Karwar is a really beautiful thing to witness. We got the first view of the sea when we were something like ten to fifteen kilometers from Karwar. The fact that we had cycled to Chennai from Bangalore before and now to Goa, gave us a sense of conquering the east coast and the west coast. The sea looked absolutely fantastic, especially near the Karwar beach. At around 10AM we made it to the Karwar city. We had a fairly heavy breakfast at a good restaurant called Savita. Before leaving the city we lubricated our cycle chains in a cycle shop. It was pretty hot when we left Karwar.

Jon’s cycle tyre got punctured yet again when we were just about 20kms from the Goa- Karnataka border; but for our luck this time there was a cycle shop in less than half a kilometer. The guy at the shop was very nice and knew Jon’s mother tongue that is Konkani. From then on Jon took care of the communication with the people we met, unlike before. After the puncture incident we pretty much knew that we wouldn’t be making it to the lunch at Jon’s place. Just before we reached the Karnataka – Goa border Jon expressed his interest in buying me a beer bottle at Canacona, the first Goan city on our way. I had never consumed alcohol more than 10ml in my entire life, and always refused to have when ever any of my friends asked, requested or even forced, however this time I responded to Jon with very positive YES with in a second or so. I knew that it was different this time. I wanted to make the event little larger thing by having it. I can’t really say whether it made any sense but for the next couple of days I had extra strong beer, white wine, red wine, triple x rum etc at Jon’s home. Well, it would require an altogether different article to write about the super great hospitality I got at Jon’s home, but for now I shall stick to the ride report.

Reaching the Karnataka – Goa border meant that our mission had nearly accomplished. I got good number of pictures of me crossing the border clicked by Jon. We reached Canacone by about 3PM or so. As I told you earlier we celebrated our feat by having a bottle of beer each. The beer tasted bitter for the first go, but was pretty good by the time I completed the bottle. It was kind of nice probably because I was fairly hungry and thirsty. We also had dosa in a south Indian restaurant and also an ice cream each before we left Canacone. Well, only after cycling few kilometers from Canacone we realized that we had not completed the toughest climb of the expedition. The stretch from Canacona to Margoa had very steep climbs which actually go on and on for long. Man that was really a test of patience. When we thought we have almost made it wasn’t actually done. Like-wise we also experienced great descent as well which in a way compensated. We took quite many pictures just before reaching Jon’s home as there was enough time for the sunset. We were pretty much celebrating by the time we reached Jon’s village. Jon took a video of us reaching his home. Jon’s parents, brother and his neighbors too were waiting with flowers and sweets when we reached his home. We got a pretty neat welcome from the whole group. Jon’s parents were very delighted to see us complete the dream expedition. We both actually looked like war heroes in all the snaps that were taken. We totally loved the attention, loved the fact that we did it. Well, that’s how our expedition ended. Would I like to say anything more? Yes, I do. Here it goes:

It all started with some kind of madness. Well, not all madness is a disease, some madness could be cure to a disease which you never knew you had or perhaps you never thought you could ever have, try catering to the madness in any case, believe me it’s a sexy awesome feeling when you actually indulge in it.

And yes, Cheers Jonathan! Man we made it!

Our Bangalore to Chennai cycling expedition...

April 10, 2011

Bangalore

Dear friends,

This letter which I am writing now is about the Bangalore – Chennai cycling expedition that my friend, Jonathan and I completed a couple of days back. I am writing this while keeping in mind about those comments many of you posted in various social networking sites with respect to the expedition pictures and the tweet that I posted few days back.

Jonathan and I had planned for the cycling trip to Chennai nearly a month back. In order to do such a long distance cycling, we thought an expedition of smaller scale could help us prepare for the potential challenges. Hence we did the Savandurga cycling expedition (150kms) two weeks back, along with one more friend from our institute (IISc , Bangalore). The plan for the Chennai trip was to cycle during the night while to take rest during the day time so that we wouldn’t get charred by the super hot rays from the summer sun. Well, we stuck to our plan. We started our journey from my place in BTM layout at 11:30PM 5^th (Tuesday), though Jon would disagree for the fact that he started his journey from the Institute. Some of my close pals had come over to my place to wish us for the trip. It was damn nice to get a send off from your great friends when you are trying out something less normal.

The first stretch of cycling 100kms from Bangalore to Krishnagiri was fairly straight forward as we were all energetic, the roads were more of negative slope and well, we were super motivated. Every time we talked during this particular stretch, we were totally appreciating ourselves for taking up this expedition. We covered it with little difficulty. The best thing that happened during this stretch was that we found a MacDonald’s 24hour outlet. Instead of concentrating on the food we rather spent more time clicking pictures with my DSLR, which I must say turned out to be a worth it luggage to carry. After the sweet ride, the journey from Krishnagiri became incrementally painful with time. We could feel the ups and downs on the terrain. I guess it was also because we were fiddling with our body clock. I was feeling very drowsy. Jon was also fairly drowsy. By the time it turned six in the morning we were searching for a place to crash. We thought of even sleeping below a tree till the evening, as our next planned destination Vellore was about 100kms or less away. The only awesome thing during this stretch was listening to great music from my friend’s IPod to which he had ‘hand’ picked the songs to make a rocking playlist from his freaking entire collection, specifically for my cycle trip – what friend he is!

When we were about 80kms away from Vellore (8AM), Jon saw a sign board saying “Ramakrishna Mutt – 1 km” and told me about it. I felt a sense of relief listening to it as I always heard good things about that particular Mutt. We could trace the Mutt which was located inside this small town called Natrampalli. Immediately after entering the Mutt we met many students of the school, which is run by the Mutt. Though we didn’t know a common language still we were able communicate with them. The Mutts’ bhramacharis were very gracious. They allowed us to take bath at their facility, served us amazing breakfast, lunch & evening tea/snacks and also gave a neat place to take rest. It was a heavenly treatment. We slept for nearly six hours during our stay at the Mutt. Before leaving the Mutt , we amused the children’s of the Mutt, who are mostly orphans, by taking several pictures of them with our cycling stuff like helmet, torch light and stuff. They were very pleased to see their pictures on the LCD screen of the camera. Jon and I have promised ourselves to send the hard copy of few of those pictures to the Mutt.

We left the Mutt at about 6:30PM (6^th –Wednesday) after meeting the Mutt’s head who gave a very friendly advice about life and things we have to do in life, some things like that. Our plan for the night was to reach Vellore by 10:30 – 11, have a dinner at a neat restaurant and if possible reach Chennai by morning or at least lessen the distance by a good factor. Since the plan was fairly practical we could adhere to it to a good extent. The place we chose to have dinner wasn’t all that good as there were very few restaurants open at 11:30 at Vellore. We did our best to reach Chennai by morning but again the body refused to cycle after five. We took a short detour to Kanchipuram to take rest. This 150kms stretch from Natrampalli to Kanchipuram was super awesome as the route was mostly even and the roads were too smooth. The pleasure one gets by cycling on such tracks can only be felt by the cyclist himself. The feel for the machine we get while changing the gear arrangements is some thing impossible to articulate. My dear friends try cycling it gives a kick probably way to high than alcohol, well you might tell me the other way, perhaps I will try alcohol some time and hopefully reiterate the statement with more commitment. Besides the joy that we extracted by cycling, we met many delightful people while cycling on the high way. One person whom we could never forget is this shop keeper with whom Jon got into a conversation with while cycling. This person, while driving the two wheeler at the pace of cycle, asked Jon about our expedition. After hearing the story he was damn impressed and served us a bottle of Pepsi and other stuff at his shop which is located on the high way. Like wise, we met several other people who showered their wishes on us and also at times advised us in keep ourselves safe from the Heavy duty vehicles ripping on the high way.

Coming back to the main story, we took a lodge in Kanchipuram to take rest and also to kill time till the evening. Like in Ramakrishna mutt, we slept off for a long duration in the lodge. One thing that we could infer during the trip was that the people of Tamil Nadu are very generous and polite. When we were having coffee at a proper south Indian restaurant, Jon spilled his coffee on to the table by mistake. After seeing that, a maid immediately came over to our table to clean it. Having lost more than half the cup of his coffee to the table, Jon drank the remaining coffee and then we decided to leave. When we were about to leave the waiter came with a full cup coffee and insisted Jon to have. Though it’s a minor incident here, we could see a great sense of hospitality around us through out the trip.

We didn’t check into any temple in ‘the city of temples’ – Kanchipuram, however we roamed around the city taking pictures and videos till it turned dark on 7^th (Thursday). We left Kanchi at around 6:45PM and hit the down slope National High way to Chennai by Seven. The plan was to meet Jon’s Mathematics geek friends from Institute of Mathematical Science (IMSc) before midnight. We had our dinner in a fairly overpriced restaurant called Indo – Muscat Bakery which was located on the high way. The food was alright but I was glad about the neat lavatory facility in the restaurant. Things went fairly according to the plan and we reached IMSc by around 12:30AM. Jon said couple of time that “how can you not meet Caesar when go to Rome?” when I showed disinterest in cycling to IMSc which is away from Chennai Central; Well, after meeting those friends of him I could actually appreciate the quote. In fact one of his friend happened to be my friend too, we had played cricket together on a few occasions when that guy was in the campus. And yes, now I fully agree with Jon, you got to meet at least some one you know when ever you travel to a different place. It’s a totally worth it idea!

It was a wonderful time roaming around Chennai city during the night as the roads were dead free from vehicles. We reached Chennai Central Railway station by 3AM (8^th – Friday), with that we completed our expedition of cycling 350kms (= 130 +150 + 70 kms) in 28Hrs (8 + 12 + 8). And yeah, I forgot to tell you that we had booked a train ticket for the return journey. The biggest set back of the trip happened when the luggage department at the Chennai station informed us that the train that we had booked, Shatabdhi express, wouldn’t carry any luggage as it didn’t come with the luggage carrier that day. We were apprehensive about our next move but the luggage handling guy advised us to send our cycles in a train which would arrive at the Bangalore station two hour after we reach. We had no other option but to go with that advice. We were fortunate as it didn’t turn out to become a real setback; we got our cycles in proper shape.

Well, that was the story of our Bangalore to Chennai cycling expedition. I have already said that it was awesome, kick ass, killer and all, what I haven’t emphasized much is being in the awesome company of Jonathan Fernandis. This guy from Goa, who spends most of his day solving problems in Algebraic number theory, is an absolute fun guy. In fact, when he told me that he would be leaving India to do his Doctoral studies at University of Maryland (college park), I told him that we have to make the rest of his stay here large and super kick ass. He got an imported sports cycle, which he prefers to call it as has machine, just before our Savandurga expedition. The best thing about this guy is he is logical, argumentative, straight forward and at the same time very considerate. I have had umpteen numbers of discussions with him during the trip, in all these discussion he sets his argument with a clear rational base –amazing. Before taking up this trip both of has had promised ourselves that we would complete our primary work in life to a significant extent so that we could have a neat adventure of cycling the mentioned distance, so did we do. The fact that we would always have difficulty in taking up such expedition because of the work that we do for our living is never debatable but what is debatable is that many a times we just don’t take up such expedition for the fact we have to focus on things that makes up our living. Anyway, I have made this letter fairly lengthy though I have missed several minute details, I wish to end this letter with few lines that I wrote in hindi some time back, which in some way fits the context here:-

“aare yaar woh dhin hey kya jab mazak na ho

woh pal hey kya jab dil may arraam na ho

chodo yeah sab kam dhandha kuch waqt ke liye

phir dheko yeah zindhagi kithne kubsurath hey aap key liye”

cheers,

Ganesh

Those bus rides... and those friends...

It wasn't all romantic, at least when I just got into Engineering. Struggling fairly hard during 11th and 12th, preparing for IIT-JEE, perhaps failing badly and then joining RV College of Engineering (RVCE) was little disappointing. However, RVCE was (is?) the best Engineering college in Bangalore, getting in there was a big success according to my mom. It was like a good arranged marriage, with parents being the happiest.

RVCE was nearly 15 kms from my home. During my first year I commuted through college bus. Two good friends from my 11th and 12th class, Vin and San, had also joined RVCE and boarded the same college bus which I did. Vin and I, being the less diplomatic ones and bit innocent during those days, were some of the greatest victims of ragging in the bus, while San was fairly silent creature in the bus. We were ragged by almost all our seniors who had even little interest in interacting with us, though none of them harassed or violated. It wasn't comfortable at all at the beginning . Some times I used to board girls bus saying that I missed the guys bus, with real intentions of avoiding ragging, never the less used to get ragged there as well. Our seniors extracted major fun in asking questions related to girls, fantasizes, sexual intercourse, kamasutra etc. Being more of a timid guy then, I had no idea of any of those things, in fact when I was younger I used to refrain my self from talking to people who used to talk about such things. My seniors took great advantage of my naiveness during the bus journey. One incident I would always remember is when they asked me how would I test a condom. Though I had expressed my deep disinterest in answering that question but they wanted me to answer at any cost. After getting pressurized from all corners, I had answered that I would probably check for an ISI mark on the condom. The whole bus had laughed at the answer of mine and from then on started calling me ISI boy. My friend Vin, who saw me getting properly screwed by our seniors decided to educate me on all the things that were required for a man to know. I went to his house during some weekends when his parents were out, to read the magazine 'Woman's Era". Also picked up other stuff (you know what I mean) from other sources to get better understanding. That's how and when, I got my first lessons on Sex education, which I must say turned out be quite astonishing.

The college bus journey went on to become a great fun as time passed. Our interaction with the seniors became very friendly. They started sharing their experiences with us quite candidly by the end of first semester. They helped us in various ways like mentoring, lending reference books, advising on semester exams and stuff like that. Though it was fun to go in the college bus, it was also an expensive affair hence Vin and I decided to take up government bus to commute from the second year. Mean while both of us had become good friends with one more guy called Jay, who was also coming from our area to the college. Three of us were like bus buddies. San continued commuting in the college bus during the second year as well.

Our journey to college in the second year was a real pain, as we had to catch multiple buses, that too it went via places like city market and hence the bus used to get stuck in all possible traffic jams. Missing the first hour was a quite common thing. Bunking classes was some kind of great feeling as it gave a sense of college hood freedom while missing classes because of sluggish traffic or getting up late gave a very awful feeling. There was only one direct bus from the college to our area and unfortunately timings of that coincided with the time of the last college bell. It gave us supreme happiness when ever we caught that bus.

I guess some time during the end of second year or the start of third year of our engineering, state government introduced many buses on the outer ring road. Our area (locality) and RVCE was located on the outer ring road. That was a great relief. Traveling in those buses made our life very comfortable as it had many seats vacant when ever we got in and more over it took much lesser time to reach our destination. San also left the college bus and came with us in the government bus later. We , that is Vin, Jay, San and I, had great fun in the bus with many conversation regarding events of the day and stuff. Sixty percent of the time the subject of our discussion was about girls of our college in general and girls of our respective department in specific. Though none of us had a bit of courage to ask any damn girl out on this earth but we had fair idea of what- dress, who - wore, which - day. During my third year I was attracted to a cute north Indian chick from my department. I did put my efforts in checking her out at least once a week. It was nice to see her in quite modern outfits and also talking about her with these friends of mine in the bus. I was quite excited when I met her during some college fest and got a chance to work with her. However I neither had guts nor genuine interest to pursue on her at any levels. Our friends, Vin and Jay had also fallen for some girls in the college, where as San never talked about any girl in specific, he was more of a listener of our weird day to day stories. Vin had got attracted to a pretty looking south Indian girl while we were in the first year itself, in fact to be more accurate he got attracted to her during engineering seat selection day it self. He did everything to impress her. Days when she talked to him were like the best days according to him, then. He cherished those events by repeatedly talking about those for months with us in the bus. She knew that he had totally fallen for her while we knew that she had little or no interest in him. Instead of taking her out his mind we rather encouraged him in all the ventures to impress her, which eventually failed miserably. I had great fun in building up good hopes in him about that girl when ever he spoke about her. When it became quite obvious that she wasn't falling for him we did the needful, perhaps the right thing. Our hero, Jay, had got attracted to a girl whom the whole college used to leach at. She was like a super model, more of a reserved types and our guy had not even socially interacted with an extrovert girl, even in the department. According to him she was good and rest were okay, perhaps I must say our innocent boy had very high standards. Vin, San and I made very funny sarcastic comments on Jay when ever he gave his rating about any girl in the college. Well, we did lots of ratings, created nick names, passed sarcastic comments regarding the girls we had met, seen and heard during those bus ride conversations. Seriously it was damn interesting!

We had made some more friends from our college and neighboring colleges, who commuted in those ring road buses. Our discussion with them were mainly on sports, movies and other university related things. On few occasion we did ragg our juniors but it was never as intense as the one in our college bus. All in all those ring road buses gave us a neat platform for much required social interaction and tension relief from the ever increasing academic pressure and career shaping objectives.

After completing engineering, as expected, all of us went on different directions to chase for the things that we genuinely thought of during those four years. San and Jay left India few years back. Jay had come over here (India) a month back and San came couple of days back. Vin and I took him (San) to a neat coffee place yesterday evening near our place and talked about those days when we just talked about stuff that we neither got then nor now, but just spoke for hours together tirelessly.

Its like being in a relationship...

During my school days I had a great passion for drawing and painting. My parents encouraged me in every possible way they could and never had any doubts on my spirit for it. I had great fun trying out various art mediums like, water colours, poster colours, oil pastels, crayons etc. Shopping for these art materials was like a periodic event, especially during my middle and high school days. My dad used to take me to Avenue road, the place where almost all stationary items are available at a whole sale price, to get the art materials. When ever I saw a new art material at a shop, I used to get super excited and after seeing my excitement, he never stopped me from buying those stuff. Coming from an ordinary middle class family never had issues when it came to persuasion of art, science or sports, all these were valued equally by my parents.

By the time I turned 18 my interest slowly shifted towards Engineering. I got attracted by the very idea of making stuff that could have influence on our day to day life. Fortunately, I was in a great place, doing my Bachelor of Engineering (BE) along with some great minds in my class. Though not all were keen about engineering but they were bunch of ambitious people.

A road perpendicular to Avenue road (where I got art materials) called S P Road became more interesting place after my inception to engineering. S P Road is a place where we get variety of electronic, perhaps engineering stuff , I mean components. We got all the components that were required to do our lab experiments prescribed in our syllabus in S P Road. Few of my friends used to buy some critical components from there to do experiments during our final lab exams, as many of us had the feeling that components provided by the college could be faulty because of which we may not get the right output in the exam. I used to buy components much much before the exams. My close pal during my BE days, Vinod, and I had an advantage of doing all our lab experiments at my dad's office. My Dad used to work in Industrial Training Institute where there was a facility to do electronics experiments. Vinod and I gained great confidence doing experiments in that small lab which we called it as our BELL LABS. Burning the components (by mistake - like wrong connection) during experimentation was quite common, with that visiting S P Road to buy components had also become frequent. That was when I started visiting SP Road.

I had many like minded friends during my engineering education. I had great fun in discussing electronics with them. Two friends who comes to my mind right away are Ashwin Mukundan and Srivatsa Aithal. Ashiwin was my class mate. I must have had discussed with him on nearly all the circuits that we did in our lab and many more that came in some electronics magazines. He was/is a down to earth person with immense interest towards electronic gadgets. While Srivatsa and I did our primary schooling together. Incidentally we both had taken same engineering course (but different colleges) hence we got connected once again after a long gap. Along with them, some more friends from college and near my house, I had made a group to attend a lab based training program/ workshop pertaining to electronics circuits, during our semester holidays. We leisurely did many electronics circuits from morning to evening as the lab in charge had left us with no rules or condition. I specifically remember one incident during those lab days: Once we found a FM Transmitter circuit in some electronics magazine. When we saw the circuit we thought we could try out but we did not have enough components. Ashwin and I decided to do the circuit after buying the required components from SP Road, while Srivatsa was adamant on doing the circuit with the available components in the lab. We , especially I, thought he was crazy. Srivatsa could actually make a working FM Transmitter with a very few components on the desk by evening that day. That's when we came to know the genius in him. Srivatsa had visited SP Road may be ten times more than the number of times I had visited but he had the engineering acumen probably hundred times than that of mine. He didn't just teach us some neat electronics design during that workshop but also shared the spirit for doing electronics engineering.

SP Road helped us bridged from our conceptual understanding to practical knowledge in engineering. Every visit to SP road incrementally influenced on our thinking for engineering. There were electronics components shops, computer shops, electrical hardware shops, mechanical workshop based shops, shops related to constructions and many other shops. We could get a tiny bolt to a dish antenna, from resistor to microprocessor, so on and so forth. Almost every body who did engineering in circuits branch (in Bangalore) would have visited or their project mates would have visited. Some would call it as the hell on this earth for its crowd and dirtiness while some of us found it as a god sent engineering 'gold mine'. Well, at least for me my engineering wouldn't have been real education without SP Road.


After completing my engineering I joined an engineering start-up which was into special purpose machine, robotics and automation. It had a dozen mechanical engineers and a few electronics engineer. My first assignment was to design various circuits that would interface computers with machines. I had done circuits in engineering with little applicability to stand Industry standards , most of them were for fun. When I got into a real design I found my self naive. I made visits to SP road almost every alternate day to buy components that suited my design but to my bad luck I wasn't getting many of the components that I wanted. My boss (who happen to be a Stanford grad) wasn't that result oriented one when I joined the setup. He was considerate person and supported me even when things didn't work. He loudly appreciated when I ever I was able to show even a little progress. He was happy to see me indulging my self into the work. He started teasing me by calling SP Road as my in-laws place. With time I realized that S P Road was not the one stop solution for every need. I decided to move on from there. I found sources that offered many more component, at a little lower price and that too at our door step. My respect for S P Road shop keepers died by the time I completed a year in the company.

I was lucky - I g0t a seat in Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to do my masters, hence I decided to leave that start up after working for little more than a year. Studying in IISc was my dream during my BE days, I was super happy to get in. My research work was primarily experimental in nature. It involved developing electronic systems to set up the experiment. Electronics design was very much part of my research work. I was working under a professor who is an electronics genius and little bit short tempered as well. I had to be care full with his moods swings. When I had to procure components, he insisted that he wants to come with me and also wanted to get it from S P Road. I didn't want to get any components from S P Road as I had made up my mind and also I had built other contacts. I had no choice but to go with my guide to S P Road. He had been in the US for more than eight years, yet he wanted to walk in that dirty road and didn't mind waiting for hours to get components. He enjoyed browsing through the shops looking at components as though he had not seen it before while the truth was that he had worked with all those, just that his excitement remained unchanged with time. We had many discussions on various electronics circuits during that visit to S P Road. The components that we didn't get were replaced by the nearly equivalent components that met the requirement though not the part number or complete specification. He had the knowledge and patience to identify those equivalent components which I totally lacked doing during my work in that start up. My dislike towards S P Road was partly to do with the attitude with which I had taken it. After that visit to S P Road, I went there many more times with him and again fell in love with the street as I did during my college days.

I had got a job in GE during my placements which I joined after spending two years in the campus. I had left the campus with out submitting my dissertation work as I had not completed few experiments. I left as I wanted a job desperately and my guide also let me join with few simple conditions. In a year or so I submitted my thesis and recently got my degree as well. During those two years in GE, I did get a chance to do neat electronics engineering for aviation systems and energy systems businesses but I was missing out on doing creative hobby electronics as there were no real good place in Hyderabad to buy electronic components. In fact during one occasion when I was in Bangalore, I visited S P road to buy some micro-controllers to do some fun project. I could do very few such projects as I wasn't motivated enough to buy components online or else where. I missed S P Road to a large extent during those days.

I quit GE after spending nearly two years. I decided to start a business of my own in Energy domain, to begin with solar energy solution. First thing I did when I wanted to do something in solar was that I got a solar panel and a battery from S P Road to try out the solar charging functionality. However, I spent some three months time in a solar company to get some exposure in solar technology, outside Bangalore. Now I am back to Bangalore.

Few days back one of my uncles told me his UPS isn't working and asked me if I could fix it. I readily agreed. Yesterday while troubleshooting, I could figure out that a component had blown and I also figured out that the component isn't a readily available component in a shop. I went to S P Road and after a brief discussion with the shop keeper I found a component that could satisfy the requirement. Today I was able to fix the UPS. When I was having a cup of coffee at a restaurant near S P Road, I could recollect all these days of my association with the street, which in a way made me an Engineer.

Little Things...

I had been to Ahmadabad for a few days to attend a friend's wedding. When I reached there, I could see that the city dwellers were mostly indulged in kite flying. It was some kind of a festival there. My friend, who was getting married, who was also my colleague some time back, had done arrangements for our (my other ex-colleagues) stay in a neat hotel. After spending some good time with my friends in that hotel, I climbed up to the hotel roof to check out the kites. I could see children, their parents, newly married couples, old age couples, middle age couples perhaps people of all age group flying kits. I used to fly kits with my school friends when I was a teenager. I would have tried kite flying again, if I had not got my camera. I had bought a very sophisticated camera (D-SLR) few months back and after getting that I have been looking for good subjects for trying out decent photography. I thought kites were the ideal subjects for my amateur photography.

I met a school going kid on the roof of the hotel who had got few kites to fly. I introduced my self to him and started chatting with him. I feel glad that I learnt Hindi, I can now 'aaram se' communicate with more people in our country. I took pictures while talking to that kid and he did find it nice that I took many of his pictures, in fact he started flying kite according to my interest. With his coordination I could take some decent pictures and well, now I can call my self an amateur photographer. After taking good quantity pictures, I decided to explore that area of the city before it would turn dark.

I saw a teenage boy selling kites on the street. I wanted to take a picture of him with the kites, later I requested for the same. He was glad to do so. He came up with a stylish pose by himself holding kites in his hands and resting his back on some new car. I thanked him, kept my camera inside my bag and moved ahead for a walk. Less than ten meters from that kite boy I saw a road side tea/coffee seller. I took a cup of hot tea to feel more comfortable in that chill weather. A man who apparently saw me taking pictures of the kite selling boy asked me weather I could take a picture of him along with few other people standing there as well. I agreed immediately, as there was absolutely no reason to say no. I saw some more people approaching the tea/coffee shop to get photographed. I did take pictures of all those people. They were super happy for being photographed and looking at their pictures on the LCD screen made them even thrilled. I was also kind of thrilled seeing that smile on there faces. One person, who called him self as Arjun Pandith, asked me weather I was some kind of a journalist. I informed him that I am an ordinary person with no such background and added that I just love taking pictures. He wasn't ready to believe me as he was kind of convinced that my camera wasn't an ordinary one. He requested me to publish his pictures where ever possible. I didn't know what to tell him, I just smiled at him and moved ahead on the street.

That incident on the street created an impression on my mind. I kept thinking why were they so keen in getting photographed, what is that makes them so happy, what is that created that immediate bonding, what is that made me feel so nice, well, I still think about it...

( Do check the pictures of these people who made that evening a very special one....

http://picasaweb.google.com/isiganesh/PicsOfThePostLITTLETHINGS?authkey=Gv1sRgCLiAy6W-8eOuSQ# )