Let the learning begin....

Many many years ago, on this full moon day, Lord Shiva, the first Yogi of the world, decided to become a Guru. Ofcourse, it wasn't an overnight decision. While many gave up on receiving Lord Shiva's attention, seven people stood up to this mission. After 84 years of intense sadhana, the Guru took notice of them and acknowledged that they were finally ready. Thus began the transmission of Yogic science.

We celebrate this special full moon day as Guru Poornima. The chosen day when immense learning happens, if we are receptive.

This day takes me back to the moment I took this picture of the west face of Mount Kailash. It was breathtaking with a rock formation at the front, resembling Nandi - the Gate keeper of Shiva's abode, and couple of stone formations resembling the seven rishis at the extreme right corner.

While enjoying this sight, shooting a picture was the last thing on my mind. I barely managed!

A slice of Paradise!

My next destination from Cochin, was Kerala’s most famous tourist destination popularly known as the “Venice of the East” – Alappuzha (pronouncing this requires some tongue acrobats and therefore you can keep it simple -  Allepey) J

According to one of the popular myths around its origin, Kerala  is believed to be reclaimed from the sea by Parasurama – a warrior sage also believed to be the sixth incarnation of Lord Vishnu.

And the legend goes like this - Parasurama kills all the male Kshatriyas (ruling caste) on earth to deliver the world  from their arrogant oppression.  After destroying the Kshatriya kings, he approaches an assembly of learned men to find a way of penitence for his sins. He is advised that, to save his soul from damnation, he must hand over the lands he had conquered to the Brahmins.

Therefore he starts from Gokarna (near present Goa), reaches Kanyakumari (Tamilnadu) and throws his axe northward across the ocean. The place where the axe lands is Kerala.

Flanked by the Arabian sea on one side and a web of rivers on the other, Allepey does seem like the place where Parasuram’s axe ACTUALLY fell,  therefore, cutting it off from the mainland. 

Finding a place to stay in Allepey during the Christmas/New year holidays, requires a bit of planning upfront. And of course all prices are premium at this time of the year.

Therefore after scouring through a bunch of places to stay, we zeroed upon the Casamaria Beach Resort based on feedback from tripadvisor.com.

Contrary to its fancy name, Casamaria is a simple place with basic home stay comfort. This place is run by a small team of friendly staff and I realized that the sheer warmth of this place was the reason why many visitors from within and outside India thronged here.

After a sumptuous lunch at the Dreamer’s café by the beach, our boat journey began right at the heart of the Alappuzha town.  And from here we proceeded into an unbelievable expanse of waters, the Punnamada lake, that forms part of the Vembanad backwaters, believed to be the largest inland water body in Asia.

The houseboats of Kerala are totally eco-friendly and made of wood, coconut fibre, bamboo poles, ropes and bamboo mats. And not a single nail is used in the making of these boats!

American adventure tourist Jason Williams while talking about his country boat cruise says “You slither through the water silently because you don’t want to disturb the mauve hyacinths among which the fish thrive….”

Life in Allepey is quite laid back and simple. However one should not misunderstand this simplicity with backwardness.

Legends apart, Kerala stands first in Human Development Index among the states in India.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. Only two countries in the world (Norway and Australia) have higher HDI than Kerala as per 2011 reports.

And all this with a much lower per capita income than the developed countries!

After a couple of hours on the boat, you can stop by one of the shops by the banks for some hot chai or karimeen or plain tender coconut water. And that is exactly what we did. The coconut vendor further entertained us with his giant pet and happily posed for the camera as well.

In about 4 hours, our backwater cruise came to an end, and indeed, I was wishing for more!

Pride !

Indians today, seldom come across as proud people.
Well, we have had a glorious past. So what? We have moved on. Because, the reality is NOW!

Centuries of invasions have made us a subservient lot.  Today, even while we travel across the seas and achieve great feats, we are "mostly" modest (I mean, we just can't do the bragging thing!)

However, there are two days in a year (Republic Day and Independence Day), when the spirit of oneness sweeps across this large country (though only momentarily)! 

For once, we forget about our every day existence and swell with pride for being part of this great legacy called India.

As children, January 26th meant, watching the Republic Day parade in the National channel, if we were lucky enough to have a television. If not, even better. We congregated at the neighbour's houses which had one and enjoyed the different shows put up by the republic day parade participants.

For some, it was even better. For three years in a row, as part of the National Scouts and Guides movement, a bunch of us had the opportunity to represent our region for the State republic parade across that long beautiful stretch of the Marina beach in Chennai. This meant, almost a month of practice at around 5:30 am in the morning along the Marina.

But we barely felt any physical stress because getting rid of those boring classes in school, for half a day was a lot more fun J

Many years hence, a quick look at how Republic Day was celebrated around me, here in Bangalore.

Couple of bangalorean schools have their Sports day around this timeframe. The kindergarteners of Bishop Cotton Boys School, Bangalore, celebrated the Republic Day week with their Annual Sports event.

 

Oh yes, these kindergarteners have their own little band leader leading the overall school band :)

On the Republic Day, I headed to the Freedom Park in Bangalore, more popular only after Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption protest, held here. 

The Freedom Park was originally a Central Jail built during 1866 when the British wanted more and more jails to accommodate the rising number of self sacrificing freedom fighters.

Today, this Freedom park serves as a beautiful multi-use urban park with a state-of-the-art information corridor, cultural and leisure joints, children play areas, light and sound shows etc.

However  architect couple Soumitro Ghosh and Nisha Mathew Ghosh, who designed this structure, have ensured that the historical features of this place (such as the Watch Tower for the prison guards as well as the Prison main entrance) were kept.

In keeping with its history, this park was built to provide dedicated space for holding protests and rallies.

Another interesting event during this time, is the Scooter Rally organized by a couple of enthusiasts, at the Bangalore Cubbon Park. What a better day to celebrate everything that is vintage!  Some clicks from this event…. 

 

  

And ofcourse, though I have often repeated myself, no Republic day is complete, if you are in Bangalore and do not catch the flower show in Lalbagh, which saw ~2,00,000 people on this day.

This year's star attraction was the Buddha, amidst the backdrop of beautiful flowers.

Hmm..well, yeah...maybe we should get some Pride :) 

The world, thru' your smartphone!

Last Sunday afternoon, after a sumptuous meal (courtesy – the great Indian harvest festival - Pongal), I took off to a photowalk in Lalbagh with a bunch of like minded folks.

This walk was a unique one because all pictures were to be taken only with a camera phone!

So after weeks of haggling with aperture settings and shutter speeds, this trip was a welcome change. And particularly, no need for carrying huge ugly camera bags and being at the receiving end of weird glances from passersby!

I'm not a proud owner of the Iphone 4S. Due to my history of losing phones, I always stuck to the modest ones. And therefore my Samsung Galaxy ACE (2592x1944 pixels, 5MP) was to be my company for this walk. With an extremely bad battery life and  a limited zoom function which forces you to click at 640x480, it does limit one’s possibilities of being creative (assuming one, IS !).

But what the heck! Life is more about having a good time than about capturing good pictures. Therefore, I told myself - if everything failed, I could enjoy a good evening walk meeting up with a diverse group of people outside the confines of work and family (please don’t read any non-existent contempt or disgust, between these innocent lines!)

We started off the walk, with some shots of the Kempagowda tower along with the rocky terrain surrounding it.

Bangalorean families were enjoying their evening of fresh air, after a busy festive morning.

And vendors were making the most of the crowd here.

 

The glass house, the star attraction of Lalbagh was also a wonderful sight at this time of the day.

And after a while of chit chatting on the latest lens and image processing softwares, we enjoyed this wonderful sunset.

We then proceeded to the much awaited part of the walk - a visit to the “Food street” in VV Puram which is famous for its line of shops, selling Kannadiga delicacies.

This season’s special was the Avarekalu Dose. We downed these fluffy dosas and washed it up with a Masala Jeera Fizz drink (I’ve never heard of it either!). Thereon we stopped by the next shop for some traditional Dal Obbattus, Akki roties and Paddus. We then savoured the spicy hot capsicum bajjis and rounded it off with the sinfully sweet Gulkhand Icecream (2 scoops of icecream placed over a bed of rose petal jam, garnished with loads of banana, figs, apples, guavas – I didn’t notice the ingredients any further because I was blinded by the onslaught of its taste!)

Some more on the "V V Puram - Food Street"

Due to popular demand for pictures on the food street (well, I just needed an excuse to get there again!), I present to you, "the great Gulkhand icecream" -  probably the only icecream in the world, that is served on a banana leaf.

Caution: This icecream is only meant for people with an Xtreme sweet tooth. For those who cannot go beyond chocolates and pancakes, a better deal would be to try these delicious obbattus/holiges.

And if that makes you feel any better, this time around, I stuck to a simple strong coffee.