Pictorial Randomness

Batmobile!

2007-08-16T08:22:00.001-07:00

IMG_0292, originally uploaded by Ankur P.

This is the Batmobile. From Batman Begins. Up close.

This picture was taken in one of the back lots of the Warner Bro studio in LA. This place houses all the "kewl" vehicles used in recent Warner movies. Like, the futurustic car from Minority Report, the flying car from Harry Potter 2, the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo, Batmobile from Batman Forever and this awesome hunk of a car in the picture.

On this studio tour, we were accompanied by two dudes who were totally crazy about Batman ... or Batman movies. The whole time (around 4 hours) they were just going on and on and on about Batman (our guide was pissed off by the end). And the only things they were interested in the whole thousand acre complex were the things that had to do something with ... yup, Batman.

BTW, I am also a Batman fan ... but the movies somehow don't match up to the books (or comics, or graphic novels). Still, looking forward to The Dark Knight:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/
http://slashfilm.com/2007/05/19/the-joker-revealed/

Trekking in Monsoon

2007-08-06T21:26:00.001-07:00

F1220016, originally uploaded by Ankur P.

This is a photo taken 4 years back during a trek up the Lohgad fort. Those were the days when we could afford to make a plan in a minute, pick up a bag, kick up the bikes and go trekking in the mountains around Pune. In pouring rains, in misty places, in screaming winds ... we used to trek almost every weekend. Those were the days ... when we were not married :-). Now, you have to see if the vehicle will go up to the top of the place, if there'll anything decent place to eat and drink, if there'll be a loo around and so on. Sigh ;-).

Anyway, this photo was taken during June 2003. Beginning of the monsoon. The whole place, from the bottom of the climb to the top of the fort was covered in thick mist. Although for sightseeing, that is bad .. but it somehow added an element of beauty and mystery to the whole place.

Lohgad is an easy trek. It is located just off the Pune-Mumbai expressway, near the town of Malavali. You can also go there by local train. There's also the Karla and Bhaja Buddhist caves in the vicinity and so is another fort: Visapur (tougher climb). The vehicle can drive up to almost half of the route ... and from there its a simple, not so steep but a bit long climb. The fort itself is in a good condition, probably one of the best preserved ones. On the top, its quite big and you'll need almost half the day to explore it completely.

Red Hot Empire State Building

2007-07-30T22:13:00.001-07:00

IMG_0734, originally uploaded by Ankur P.

This is a shot of the Empire State Building in New York during early winter of 2006. The whole of New York was under a think fog that day. We could not go to the top of the building because "the visibility would be zero". But from down below it looked really beautiful. It looked like one of those big candles glowing in the haze in one of those old churches. The lights they have put up on the few top floors of the building make it look glowing red hot.

This picture has also become one of the most popular pictures on my Flickr.

Back! With more randomness.

2005-11-14T05:04:00.001-08:00

Before concerned people start thinking that we have stopped maintaining this blog or we are done with the randomness ... here is a big update on a very random thing that happened in the last few months. (As some of you may know) I had a big viral attack in August and was bed-ridden for 15 days or so. Once that got over, I started having totally random symptoms, like pains in random places in the body, fatigue, loss of breath, weak muscles, blurred vision, bad stomach, funny nose and so on. Although (I know now that) it is nothing life threatening, I have not been 100% for more than 3 months now. We went around consulting all sorts of doctors, from neurologists to gastroenterologists, cardiologists to pulmonologists, ... and nothing was clear. But somewhere in the middle, a noted neurologist noted that I may have "post-viral asthenia". Asthenia is clinical weakness and he said it happens mainly to workaholics (like doctors and not me). It goes up down and goes up; for a month I am feeling 95% and then suddenly for the next I am less than 75%. And thats how it has been for the last 3 months. The doctor says this thing will normalize with exercise (i.e. increasing the body's tolerance levels) and general relaxing. And then there were few other things...

September, we visited Goa. The last Portugese relic in India and the official place to have "fun". We stayed at Taj Exotica, a Portugese style resort (whatever that means) with a private, secluded and clean beach, serene and peaceful environment and great food. So for 4 days, we hogged, slept, went for long beach walks, hogged more, slept more and walked some more. Bliss.

A panorama, with hotel's golf course and all:

The doctor asked us to take one more break and so we went to Chiplun in the coastal Konkan region of the state. The resort had a spectacular view of the river down the valley and it had lots of beautiful lotuses :-). And yes, we hogged again, slept again and walked again.

Randomness: one of the offices has lots of kites circling it. Sometimes they land on the windows sills, make fluttery noises and scratch the glass.

This is when we visited Anandvan, a totally self-sufficient village of lepers. Founded by Baba Amte, the villagers who all suffer from leprosy, make everything from cloth (see the handloom below) to paper, rice to oranges, bicycles to tractors. Nobody is allowed to do nothing (*sigh*) and they make living by selling what they make. Nice encouraging place.

Then came Dasara or Dashera, the day Lord Rama defeated the demon Ravana to reclaim his wife Sita (along with good prevailing over evil in the end and all that stuff). Two of the main features of the festival are the toran (garlands of yellow marigold flowers and green mango leaves) and ravana-dahan (when an effigy of the ten-headed demon Ravana is set afire with crackers and all).

And then comes Diwali or Deepavali, the festival of lights and the biggest festival in India. Here you have the Diwali specialities:

Just fried Shankarpaale...

Rangoli and diyaas (oil lamps)...

And crackers!! Lots of them. Lots of noise and light. Everywhere.

So those have been our last 3 months. Belated "Happy Dasara", "Happy Diwali" and "Happy New Year" to everyone!

Etc from Mulshi

2005-07-12T23:39:00.000-07:00

A bunch of random pictures from the Mulshi ride we took last weekend.

You can see the road leading into the greenness. Also note the misty clouds at the top of the hill. This is point where civilization ends and Mulshi dam area begins. After this point the closest town is more than 75 KMs down the road. So, this is the point where the drive starts to get most interesting.

Thats my bike at the bottom of that piece of rock with all the green stuff growing on it:

And here's the road leading into the Tamhini ghat. This part of the road, apart from the waterfalls, also has lots of bamboo trees growing quite high into the air (see the left side of the road).

Waterfalls on the Road

2005-07-12T03:43:00.000-07:00

After you are done going around the Mulshi dam waters (20-25 KMs), the road starts climbing into the Tamhini ghat, which is full of small waterfalls. Many of these empty onto the road itself and its a real treat driving through the beautiful scene. You can stop randomly at any of the falls and have a cold bath. If you are lucky, you can find a private fall for yourself somewhere on the hills.

The road then moves down and enters Konkan, the coastland of the state. Konkan should make many appearances in these pages, or so we hope :-).

All Things Dark

2005-07-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

Many people think dark things are kool and that they rock [maan!]. Why? They don't have a clue. And as I have seen in last 7-8 years, the more urban you get, the more educated, the more online, the more americanized, the more you post on newsgroups ... you start leaning left ... towards darker things. You find the darkness in the whole Iraq affair blacker than the space, or the dark in the "Dark Knight" (aka Batman) more intersting than the absense of light in million homes, or Internet underground more chilling than when a lightning crack in a whoozing thunderstorm raises your hair few inches high.

Dark things are in. Dark things are critcally acclaimed. Left is the place to be and darkness is what should be seen from inside. Its time to look into your dark side and explore it to the end. From Alan Moore to Ramgopal Varma, from Harry Potter to Dilbert, from Kyoki Saans Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi to Sarkar ... everything is getting darker. We live in dark times.

So, here are a few [literally] dark pictures. We hope they too get critically acclaimed :-).

The Mulshi dam has a power generation plant, so that many homes should not keep in dark, and you can see the outgoing high tension wires hanging above the lake in the picture above. Making the scene darker is the thought that, if the wires break and fall into the lake below ... there are so many people taking a dip on the weekends! ;-)

And we, by the way, believe in the way of the Buddha ... the middle path :-) ;-).

Paddy Paddy Everywhere

2005-07-11T01:53:00.000-07:00

All along the road to Mulshi we could see farmers going about their businesses. Since its the early part of monsoon, the crops was still tender and green (the rectangular light green patches in pic below). Some were still ploughing (below), while some were ready to re-sow.

The main crop around here is rice ... and so all we could see for miles was paddy. Many of the folks were re-sowing, the process where the paddy is first seeded in crowded rectangular patches (like in above pic) while the field is made ready and filled with rain water, and few weeks later the paddy croplings are plucked from their patches and re-sown sparsely into the fields (below).

And as you can see from the pictures above, most of the process is manual. The ploughing etc is done by bulls and re-sowing is done mostly by women.

Lost Hobby

2005-07-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Sanju revived her long (~15 years) lost hobby of collecting rocks when we visited Mulshi this weekend. Even before we could reach the waters, she had her hand full of rocks that to start with looked quite normal to me ... but later I was also looking more at the ground and less at the river or the hills ... and I don't know why.

And here's a portion of our catch:

In retrospect, I guess some of the stones were really beautiful. Some were like eggs which when broken were like flowers from inside, some were like crystals (and I thought I had hit upon a diamond mine), some were like fossils of dead plants and flowers and sponges, and some were brightly green which we later found out was nothing but hardened algae. Weird stuff. And we bought home few kilos of it :-).

Sanju wants to put the colorful ones at the base of vases and all those shiny ones arranged in a plate in the showcase. I guess that makes sense since that is the best utility I can see of them.

How Green Is My Valley

2005-07-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

Monsoon started last month and according to the mets its progressing normally. Time dimension is always ignored: in Gujarat normal progress happened in 2 days and people had to make boats out of frying pans. While here around Pune, its really been normal and we have greenness all around. This is the best season to be around here, when valleys are lush, weather is rainily cold, light is dim and weekends are spent in greenness.

We went for a long bike ride to Mulshi dam this weekend. Although the monsoon will keep making things still green and greener, the whole view is almost green by this time. The rains have sort of stopped since the last week or so, but it started drizzling when we started climbing up. Driving in a drizzle with so much greenness around is always a pleasure.

Mulshi is also sort of different from other dams around here in the sense you can stop anywhere on the road around it, walk down a bit and take a dip in the dam waters. The road just goes on and on, and you just can't catch a break from the greening beauty around you.

Big Fool

2005-07-07T01:43:00.000-07:00

Hot summer days, when the mercury is boiling and there's no traffic on the roads, or rainy nights, when floods are forming and there again is no traffic on the roads, its time to sit inside, sip some steaming tea/coffee, eat bhujiyas and ... play cards lying on the bed. And when there are many, you play Big Fool (aka Badaam-Saat) and Rummy and Coat and Gulam-chor and 5-3-2 and so on.

While You Were Meeting...

2005-07-07T00:12:00.000-07:00

When you are in a meeting that is boring you to no end (especially if its full of management BS like "policies", "values" and stuff), you go into a different world and start deriving enjoyment from mundane things. Like...

... thinking about multi-colored multi-flavored ice-cream ...

... or, thinking how the reflection of your own hand on glazed tiles could be serious abstract art ...

... or, how there are subtle patterns in overhead tubelights.

Sigh. Do managers seriously think that engineers under them are seriously stupid to take them seriously?

And on that other note ... we were busy with the rain, an exam and a long long-deserved vacation.

Enlightened Swimming Pool

2005-05-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

First photo taken with my new cell phone. Its our building's swimming pool, atop the club house, which next to the gym, which is atop the recreation hall, which in turn in text to the game room. In short, its one packed affair. The photo is taken in the night mode from the terrace, and so its a bit darkish and grainy.

The pool is lighted up in the evenings and people make lots use of it because of the you-can-fry-your-eggs-on-my-head summer. We haven't yet made use of it, but soon should. Although we spent saturday playing carrom and snooker there.

And otherwise, days have been hot, lives have been busy, things have been routine and we have been lazy. We hope only the last part continues :-).

New Cellphone

2005-05-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Thats my new cellphone: Nokia 6230i. It has a 1.3 megapixel camera, with 1 hour video. It can play MP3, Windows Media, MPEG and few other popular audio and video formats. It also has a FM radio and ... can record from it :-). It has 512 MB memory, so it can store enough songs and videos. It supports Bluetooth, Infrared and can sync with your PC quite easily.

The first thing you notice about this phone is the screen resolution. Its damn crisp. The screen is bigger and has almost double the resolution than usual phones. When you see the 3D menus, smooth fonts, and cleanly delivered images, you fall in love with it. The menus are also heavily configurable and the user interface, like all Nokia phones, is quite simple yet powerful. It also comes with a cool audio enhancer that improves voice in noisy environments.

Pretty and pretty cool.

Saavdhaan

2005-05-07T01:21:00.000-07:00

With apologies to people who can't read and undersand Marathi. Should I feel bad I had a girl behind me on my bike? ;-) Bas!

Rainbow!

2005-05-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

It has been raining here almost everyday for the last week or so. Not that it shouldn't, but it usually doesn't. April and May are the months of intense heat and I haven't seen it raining so regularly in these months. But the rain is really a welcome relief. It makes the evenings nicely cold and nights windy, although the days sometimes get very hot and humid when the wind stops just before the rain.

Now, when you have rain along with a brighty-bright sun, you also have a rainbow (see above). In India they call it Indradhanush, the bow of Indra, the king of heaven. I wonder what kind of arrows he shoots from such a beautiful bow. I've also heard that some people have seen the full circle of the rainbow from planes and all ... I don't know if that is true ... could never find a picture of it on the net ... but if its true, it must be damn beautiful.

Usaacha Ras

2005-04-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

Another summer speciality is usaacha ras (fresh sugarcane juice). One of the best ways to beat the 40s, its a great relaxant. You gulp in some complex carbohydrates and thus beat the chances of simple dehydration. It is what sugar wants to be, but it wishes :-).

Usually (as in cities and bigger towns), they squeeze out the juice using tools of modern civilization ... that is, electric motor machines. While in villages, the civilization is left a bit behind ... and so you have the above: a simple gear-based configuration pulled by an ox (or oxen, or even men in some cases). The juice it seems is that much sweeter; we found it just okay ... but it was like godsend for us thirsty souls after a tour of the gorges.

The great thing about the above is that a very similar configuration can be used for many other things: to squeeze oil out of seeds (like groundnut, sunflower), to pull water out of wells, to separate the husk from the grain, so on and so forth.

We owe a lot to civilization, to gears and to oxen.

World's Only Swirl Canyon

2005-04-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

Around 85 kilometers from Pune, near a village called Nighoj, are what could be termed as the largest natural potholes in Asia :-). Its basically a thin but long gorge, with around 2 kilometers of black stone (most probably basault), shaped by the river into all swirly shapes imaginable. The local geological people also say its world's only "swirl canyon". Unlike Grand Canyon, which is created by the flow of the Colorado river digging top to bottom and which is also GRAND, the canyon at Nighoj are created by small hard pebbles that vigorously swirl in the river flow, grind the basault base and create circular holes in it. You can see a sample of the swirly effects in the pictures above. And yeah, the thing is not grand ... less than 100 feet deep may be and less than 3 kms long. But its is a sight to watch ... to see how some tiny stones and a [huge] chunk of water can make an otherwise dull and barren landscape look very interesting and ominous.

We could see the swirls in stone because its summer, otherwise we were told that in monsoon the place is full of deep swirling water, and putting foot in the water is more fun than suicide. As is always the case in India, people habe built a temple at the place where people flock to see the gorge and thank the goddess that they are not inside it.

Terrible Mornings

2005-04-18T05:40:00.000-07:00

Sanju has to give a well-researched presentation middle of this week. She has been fighting it out for the last few weeks, but things have really come to head since the last 3-4 days. This weekend was especially terrible for her, both days she went to sleep at 1 am and woke up for intensive googling at 4 am. I have been helping her out with the slides, googling etc, but mine have been more or less the usual 17 hour days :-).

So, I don't have to tell you who is Jon and who is Garfield in the comic-strip above :-). Umm, though the smile on Garfield's face in the last box could be more sarcastic ;-).

On the home front, we have shifted all our stuff into the new furniture. The book-case especially makes me feel real proud; I didn't know I had these many books, many of them unread :-|. The wardrobe is also quite full; we didn't know we had these many clothes, none of them unworn :-|. The house now looks more like a home and less like a hostel-room. I miss the piles of clothes and books and other smelly stuff though; after these many years its goodbye to picking your clothes randomly and getting happy for finding coins at the bottom of the heap :-(.

Furniture Saga: Rest is also done

2005-04-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

Thats the book-case-cum-computer-table and the study table. I should be the happiest person in the world right now, to finally see my beloved book collection in the place it belongs, instead of rotting in oxidizing steel almirahs and sogging cardboard boxes.

Sanju is also happy she gets a nice little table for studying; though with a little complaint: the TV would be above her head and sadly she is one of those people (like me) who wants the TV on while studying. And while she'll be studying, I would be happily lying on the comfy new bed, reading a nice book and ... watching the TeeVee :-).

Summer Rain

2005-04-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday started off like any other summer day, with the sun beating down people into sweats. By mid-afternoon it was cloudy enough for us to venture out into the same sun for an after-lunch walk. Like it is on any cloudy summer day (or like every day in Bombay ;-), the heat was dampy and there was almost no wind, what is called tufaan ke pehle ki khamoshi (the lull before the storm).

Thus and hence, it rained in the evening. And since Sanju had forgotten her keys at home, both of us enjoyed our first getting-wet-in-rain routine. The rain started off small, but soon it grew wild as you can see in the pics above. It rained for hardly half an hour, but the force of it at the end was quite good. Some tree branches tore off in the neighborhood and a poor man's shanty was thrown asunder.

The result was a cold night and clear shiny morning. The rain somehow brings down all the pollution with it and the view gets all clear as in blue. To top it off, it again rained today. Indeed, a welcome relief from the hot 40s (degrees that is).

Furniture Saga: Done!

2005-04-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

The furniture is ready! After a month of nail-on-ply and sandpaper-on-wood noises, which irritated us to no end, the wardrobe and the bed are finally done. For the last 2-3 days, we were getting impatient (and nervous) ... but now that we can see it just like we wanted to see it, it feels good to see it you see. The book-case should be ready within a day or so, but its already looking good. We spent a day wiping the glasses and mirrors and the floor squeaky clean, our hands smelling of kerosene and soap. We should start moving our stuff in its place this weekend. Tee-hee :-).

We have also ordered the kitchen wall-unit. Its that italian modular kitchen thing, with the electric chimney and all, and should arrive by the end of this month. With that, the bedroom and kitchen will be all set.

Other than that, its been a routine week. Days are getting very hot, but nights thankfully are nice. The greenness of spring is slowly giving way to the brownness of indian summer, with tar roads floating in the afternoon sun and sweats rolling into already wet clothes. Both of us had a small bout of sunstroke, with our tummies going gud-gud and heads rolling in-place, but now we are fine and enjoying ice-candies every noon and night.

Green Mangoes

2005-04-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

Summer is finally here. After a rigorous weekend in Dajipur, we decided to stay home this weekend. It was hot enough to boil our blood, just literally. For last few days the evenings have also been quite warm. Thankfully Pune has cool nights and it should be fun sleeping on the terrace.

Summer is also time of ice-creams, ice-candies, cold juices, watermelons, and ... mangoes. Since its just the start of summer, the mangoes are still green. And yet, Indian cuisine is full of choices; we made green-mango chutney (aamti aka methamba) and soon we'll have pannha (sort of a juice made from steamed green mangoes). Yumminess.

Its a real pleasure looking at and smelling the soury sweetness of the mango trees, blooming with dense flowers and the tender green fruits.

Watchmen Movie

2005-03-31T03:09:00.000-08:00

My favorite graphic novel (thick comic-book ;-), Alan Moore's seminal Watchmen, is being made into a movie; twenty years after it was first printed and after two failed attempts to screenplay it (both screenplays were extremely hated by fans). This movie will be a hard thing to do, with all the expectations built around it for 20 years and of course because of the fact that Watchmen is considered by most to be the best graphic novel ever. The book is very symbollic and multi-layered, and then we also have a long good-book-but-bad-movie history in Hollywood. I hope it turns out to be good and must say I'm very eagerly looking forward to it. Good luck to the team :-).

Sunflowers

2005-03-30T00:59:00.000-08:00

The road from Kolhapur (the connecting city) to Dajipur sanctuary was half yellow ... with these sunflowers. So many of them, everywhere and anywhere you could see. Looking out of the bus any time was looking into a patch of sunflowers.

Tarkarli Beach

2005-03-30T00:46:00.000-08:00

Wide view of the Tarkarli beach. Its around 8 kms from Sindhudurg. The route goes through small villages with cashew and mango trees filling their compounds. Mangoes were abundant and we could also see ripe cashews on some trees. Sadly, most trees were inside private properties :-(.

The entrance to the beach is through a pine forest, where you can find local students doing their homework or one-off picknickers drying themselves after a dip. Once you step into the sun you see a loooong, wide, white, clean and deserted beach. A stream of clear water runs down twistingly into the sea, with fine sand blowing over it with the wind. Even in 38 degrees celsius, the breeze is strong enough to dry off the sweat and keep you cool. The sea water is clear for a depth of more than 10 feet and is quite cold. The waves are good enough for a 6-footer like me to have a big splash. Deep into the distance you can also see Sindhudurg and the town of Malvan.

It was Sanju's first foray into the sea-waters and although she was a bit afraid at first, by the end she was not willing to come out :-). Definitely one of the best beaches I've ever seen.

Images from Sindhudurg: Aerial View

2005-03-29T03:35:00.000-08:00

An aerial photo of Sindhudurg fort. Not taken by me, but I digged it out from an email I had got few months back.

You can see the tiny cluster of houses in the center. The entrance is at the top, from where the straight (white) cement road originates and goes down into the cluster. From there, the road continues right to the topmost point on the fort. The U-shaped part at the bottom is from where the British navy breached the fort walls to conquer it. The king's prints are near the entrance, to its left; they are shrined.

Images from Sindhudurg: Holi Hai!

2005-03-29T00:42:00.000-08:00

The day we went to Sindhudurg was Holi day. Holi is festival of colors and we could see many colorful faces everywhere. People were playing with colors and water on the road, and we were stopped three times for putting color on us. We happily obliged.

Here you can see local kids washing their colors off on the jetty beach in late afternoon. I remember the days when I used to be so soaked in color that I had to bathe for more than an hour to get it off. And that too after using soaps and scrubs and detergent and oil and what not. And the next day people could still see red patches behind my ears :-).

Images from Sindhudurg: Looking out to the coast

2005-03-28T23:37:00.000-08:00

Picture taken from atop the fort entrance. Clear waters and shallow sea. In the distance, you can see the coast and the deep-green palm trees characteristic of Konkan region. Deep into the distance you can also see the Sahyadri mountains, from where we came down in the morning (from Dajipur). Also notice the fort wall, big and sturdy even after 400 years of sea and weather. Very very impressive.

Images from Sindhudurg: Fort Panorama

2005-03-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

Panoramic view from the topmost point on the Sindhudurg fort. Towards right is the coast, the town of Malvan; and left is the Arabian sea.

Images from Sindhudurg: The Fort Itself

2005-03-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

On the second day of our trip (saturday), we visited Sindhudurg sea-fort and Tarkarli beach. About 75 kilometers from Dajipur, the road goes through mountains, valleys, cashew farms and tiny villages. The moutain road was lined with mango trees in full bloom, resulting in our bags full of kairis (green mangoes) :-).

Above, you see the Sindhudurg fort in the background. A 15-minute ride on a dingy boat takes you to this big fort (45 acres) in the middle of the sea. The walls of the fort are wide and still in good shape (as wide as being able to walk the whole perimeter on the walls). Apparently, it was unconquered for 200 years before the British came in. A walk around the fort gives you only one impression: grandness. It is smartly designed (traps and good defences everywhere) and at its time had full ameneties (there are fresh-water wells and biiig store-rooms). People still live inside the fort and sell lime juice.

The most popular points of the fort are, of course, the footprint and handprint of Shivaji, the first maratha king (the man who broke the 200-year Islamic supremacy in India). The fort also has the only temple dedicated to Shivaji, which holds many of his belongings.

On the day, the place was windy and hot, as is the coastal region in summer; and so we were sweating profusely. But the grandness of the fort made up well for it. It was also Sanju's first boat ride and her first time at sea. And she was quite sturdy, although I can say she's not very good at hiding emotions ;-).

Images from Dajipur: Konkan Darshan

2005-03-28T00:23:00.000-08:00

The view to Konkan is in the middle of the jungle; a small clearing which springs out of nowhere on the road. Dajipur is approximately where the Sahyadri mountain range ends giving way to the flatlands of Karnataka in the south and coastal region of Konkan in the west.

Images from Dajipur: Walking through the Jungle

2005-03-28T00:19:00.000-08:00

Walking deep into the jungle, which is dense and lush in Dajipur. Also quite green even in these high tempratures, when trees in the village were going brown. Many types of wild flowers were there in exotic colours.

Images from Dajipur: Watch Tower

2005-03-28T00:17:00.000-08:00

The watch tower looking down upon the valley and onwards to Konkan. There were 3 of these in the jungle, of which one is this, the second is on a plateau (where the bisons were supposed to come for water, but didn't) and the third is much much deeper. We climbed the first two and the view from both is spectacular.

Images from Dajipur: Jungle Panorama

2005-03-27T23:36:00.000-08:00

We went to Dajipur wildlife sanctuary this weekend. We had to travel 15 kilometers through dense and lush green forest to reach this point. There was a watch tower and this is what you see from there: a breath-taking view of the mountains and the jungle. The wind was wild, shaking the tower slightly. The valley below was covered with light fog and one could see a river and few villages. This is the Sahyadri mountain range and deep in the distance is the coastal region of Konkan and then the Arabian sea. We walked down a bit to the edge of a cliff where a stream went down into the dense trees of the valley.

Poets...

2005-03-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

Now you know why people love Lucy :-). Or her namesake anyway ;-).

Furniture Saga: That Sleeping Thing

2005-03-24T02:39:00.000-08:00

Umm, the bed. Around 6 feet wide by 7 feet tall. Its shaped like a squarey bowl with a plate on top. The holes at the bottom are where the trolleys will roll. The back-rest is also not yet fixed. The mistri says this should be finished within a day or so. Thats, on schedule.

We are leaving for Dajipur bison sanctuary tonight, around 300 kilometers from here. Also plan to visit a sea-fort and few beaches. This should be a nice break from the routine, what with all the furnitury noises and saw dust and high tempratures around. Back monday morning.

Pear and Pencil

2005-03-23T07:13:00.000-08:00

Still life. Objects, shapes, curves, surfaces, colors and their shades.

I wish I could draw them ... no time.

There will be no comments here on.

:-).

Sinhagadh Fort

2005-03-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

Oh, and thats the Sinhagadh fort. You can see the transmission towers on the top. Top left, the straight road cutting the mountain can be seen (if you can ;-).

Road up Sinhagadh

2005-03-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a point on the road that has valley on both sides, beautiful place. Its 6 in the morning and the sun is just about awake. The road you see in this pic is probably the best condition it is in on the whole route.

Sanju had to wear a helmet, for the first time :-). She found the thing stuffy, which it is. But the early morning mountain air made up well for it. The place (like all forts around here) was very windy. It got very hot when we started back, but thankfully we got back home before it could peak at its afternoon best (it should soon touch 40 degrees celsius).

Furniture Saga: Wardrobe...

2005-03-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

Oooookay, so this is how the wardrobe looks right now. Its yet to be polished and the mirror has to be added. That should happen within a week or so. Bed and book-case should have final shape within 2-3 days.

Sinhagadh Visit

2005-03-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

We went to Sinhagadh (The Lion Fort) last saturday. Here's how the valley down below looked in the morning. Its a panoramic picture, the first I've attempted: obtained by stitching together 4 individual pics. The Mutha river winds through the Sahyadri mountains towards the city of Pune (left).

The road goes to the top of the fort, which otherwise (i.e. by foot) is a tiring and sometimes hard climb. Although this is a 400 years old fort and more than 2000 feet high, its probably the most modern; there are numerous make-shift hotels that sell anything from buttermilk and yoghurt (in earthen vessels, yummy) to chicken curry and bad pizza.

The road up is not good and Sanju had a tough time since it was her first such ride on a bike. Many times the road touches the valley air and there are few boards dedicated to people who have died en-route. Not very encouraging, but the view of the valley helps. Sanju's nervousness was gone once she reached the top safely and saw the grand vistas.

More pics to follow.

Furniture Saga: After the break

2005-03-17T05:16:00.000-08:00

The net in the office is so slow, it can put stories in soap-operas to shame. So could not post anything for a week or so. *sigh*

Anyway ... this is where the furniture saga is poised right now. They created the structure super-fast, max 3 days. But after that, its been a loooong process; just when you think you can hang your pants there, they start doing it nail by nail.

Once the plywood-only structure is ready, they will start putting the veneer on it. You see, veneer is a very smart thing: it creates an illusion that your furniture is made out of fine wood (with names that sound beeeautiful: mahogany, sapelle, macore, beech, oak, ash and so on), while at heart it is as plain as plywood. The alternative to veneer is laminate; but then the beauty is just not there: veneer is real wood with all its grains in full blow while laminate is just another man-made thing ;-). We got Macore veneer for the bedroom and American White-ash for the book-case. We should see how they look in few days, but the initial feeling is good.

We are planning to trek this weekend. The weekend after that is extended, so we will be off to the jungle and probably also a beach. I am also planning to revive my long lost love for still-life. Thats more photos and more ramblings here.

Foggy Summer

2005-03-09T22:13:00.000-08:00

Ooookay. So a few days back when I said that summer is almost here, you must understand that the key word was "almost". I can't help it when it snows in Kashmir, and some low pressure or something is created in the atmosphere, and rain comes calling on a summer day. As a result, yesterday night was cold and damp. And the morning was foggy and more cold but less damp. Then the "almost" part kicked in again, and the fog cleared in few minutes, as illustrated in the picture above. I think the time is nigh for crossing 40 degree celsius.

Stairs, The

2005-03-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

Thats 11 floors full of stairs. We live on the 8th. We don't use these often, but I remember the days when the lift hadn't been installed and I had to trudge up eight f-floors. That is the only serious workout I've ever done in my life ;-).

Oh, and guess how they got the furniture and all the plywood into the house. :-).

Summer nights are here

2005-03-06T23:30:00.000-08:00

Views at night from our building's terrace. It's getting hot, with summer almost here. The days are see-roads-floating hot, but nights are decently cool. The area we live in is the first to receive the mountain breeze, fresh off the Sahyadri ranges flowing down the Deccan plateau.

Furniture Saga: Plying the wood

2005-03-06T23:21:00.000-08:00

Work on the furniture will begin this tuesday. The mistri (carprenter) and I went to the plywood store this saturday for ... what else, plywood shopping. I didn't know there could be so many types of plywood: pine, gajjar, burma, block and what not. The mistri and the shop-dude wanted me to buy some stuff imported from Burma. I know where Burma is, but I didn't know they make such high-quality ply. But we have a budget, and so we settled for a ply called Woodpine, whatever that means. I knew of pine wood, but apparently this is ... different.

On a related note, I was reminded of how one of my sisters calls me Pine Cone, I never knew why; and I call her Strawberry :-), that too I don't know why.

Spring Time, Part II

2005-03-03T23:22:00.000-08:00

More yellowness. Bright bright bright. There are so many of these yellow flowered trees around the place! And now they are in full bloom; no leaves, just yellow flowers.

Zero to Nine

2005-03-03T03:20:00.000-08:00

0 to 9. These, very much used.

The order of numbers in the middle-one is different from other two.

Furniture Saga: ED skills

2005-02-28T05:24:00.000-08:00

This is how our bookcase cum computer table (left) and wardrobe (right) should look like. The carpenters should start their work within few days, and finish by March end. The bed is yet to be designed, but should follow soon.

I was happy with the fact that I could put my engineering drawing skills to any good use (other than solving exam papers). And I am very happy that they are still sharp :-).

Old pics of old Pune, Part II

2005-02-27T22:00:00.000-08:00

That's the most prominent hillock in and around the city of Pune called Parwati (which literally means "the hillock" :-). It has a very old temple of Lord Ganesh on top, built by the Peshwas. The photo above is more than 120 years old, you can tell that by the turbans (again, *sigh*). The lake you see there is gone; instead there's a very crowded residential area with tall apartment complexes and a big slumy area with not-so-tall shanties.

BTW, I like the away that guy there is standing. I didn't know they could pose in those times ;-).

Candy floss and Gola

2005-02-22T07:19:00.000-08:00

Candy floss and barf ka gola (flavored snow-ball): essential parts of any visit to a fair. They sure bring out the child in you; memories of days when going to the fair was an occasion. When candy floss sticking to your lips and tongues becoming red with the gola was fun :-).

Play in the dark

2005-02-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

We went for a play on sunday evening. A black comedy, a political and situational satire spoofing the story of Mahabharata. Our ribs were hurting with all the laughing. That is, the play was good.

And the theatre was dark. Much dark. I've noticed that during plays, the theatre is much darker than during a movie. The darkness really takes you in. May be a play needs more concentration than a movie. Movies are anyway so dumb these days. Hmm.

Buckets full of pickles

2005-02-19T02:14:00.000-08:00

We went to an exhibition-cum-fair yesterday. Many things there: from 52-inches projection TVs to huge sofa-sets, from aloe juice to ethnic fabrics, funky cooking pans to house management software, super-spicy mutton to sweet candy-floss and sassy sales-women to rude pamphlet boys. We thought it was a good idea not bringing much cash ... it was a heaven for an impulsive shopper. We bought only one thing, and that is shown in the picture above.

The most crowded stall of all was the "pickles in buckets" stall. Apparently, Rajasthani pickles. They had more than 20 types of spicy, sweet and tangy pickles filled in big buckets: totally mouth-watering, tongue-shattering affair. Mango, garlic, chillies, lemons and what not. You could see people drooling in buckets over the scene.

Old pics of old Pune, Part I

2005-02-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

These are changing forms of Shaniwar-wada, probably the most popular and important monument in the city of Pune. It is from here that the Peshwas (prime-ministers of the Maratha king) ruled a big part of India for 150 years before the British came in.

In the center, you can see an old photo of the wada, apparently taken around 1870. There's a bustling market in front of it, with people wearing big turbans, which I didn't know were so common in this part of India. And there are those bamboo baskets full of roundy things; I think onions and potatos.

Top right, is how the wada looks at night these days: it hosts a light and sound show every night. There's no open ground in front of it anymore, so no market; although, it is surrounded by the densest commercial area of the city. There's a wide lawn in place of the open ground now, with fountains and a statue of Peshwa Bajirao (image at the bottom), the most influential Peshwa ruler. And then, there are no turbans. People just wear what the British gave us: shirts and pants.

Turbans. Big turbans. Hmm, need to revise my history.

Spring Time, Part I

2005-02-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

Spring is here! Colors are changing everywhere. The road to our workplaces is lined with these tall trees full of bright yellow flowers. It's refreshing to see the blooming colors while going to office. A change in color is just what the doctor recommended for people not wanting to get used to their routines ;-).

And then, pink gerberas are in the market. Pink is a pinky pink all-gooey-gooey color ... but its still beautiful, especially on flowers :-).

City sunset

2005-02-14T05:13:00.000-08:00

It's not very often that you can enjoy a blushing sunset in a busy city-life. The balcony of our little adobe looks down on the Baner hills, around a kilometer away. Till that point its all modern civilization, which thankfully is less taller than our view. Sadly, you can't catch the disk of the sun ... too much dust and pollution in air for that. Long live light-scattering.

Oh, and today's valentine's day. Blah, whatever. Long live marketing.

Your home, at night

2005-02-11T01:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture I received in mail some time back. Its a collage of satellite images of various parts of Earth taken at night. Its a collage because all parts cannot have night at the same time. Looks beautiful ... and bluish. And here I was thinking the color of night is black. Well, the satellites have proved me wrong ;-).

You can tell major population areas by looking at concentration of lights. US eastern seaboard is clear, so is Japan, UK and western Europe. There's subtle concentration around Rio de Janeiro in Brazil as well as Johannesberg in South Africa. You can also clearly mark Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth in Australia, Bangkok in Thailand and HongKong in China. And notice how the Nile river is suspiciously marked bright in Egypt (Africa) ... I wonder why.

In India the lights are quite uniformly spread, but you can still distinguish Mumbai and Delhi.

Picture literally worth thousand words

2005-02-09T04:36:00.000-08:00

A part of my book collection. Crammed into the almirah like this because we don't have space to keep all the books in one place, just too many of them. Soon plan to build a nice book case.

You can see some of favorites there: Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Ludlum's The Matarese Circle, Alan Moore's graphic novels Watchmen and From Hell, Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Frank Herbert's Dune series.

Spooky doors

2005-02-07T23:31:00.000-08:00

Spooky hand-prints on an old rusty door near Sanjyoti's hostel. The door remains closed and its always dark around it. And the night adds its own color to the scene.

I say, spooky things have a certain charm.

Hot Chick

2005-02-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

Our first homemade non-veg fare. We made roasted chicken and Black Chicken. The former turned out fine and was gorged in few minutes by two hungry pigs err ... souls. The latter turned out too too spicy because of certain turny turn of events. We also had some external stomach-saving grace: gulab-jamun and seekh kebabs.

Room No. 19

2005-02-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

Sanju's room in her hostel, the Sandwich. Room 19 used to belong to Dr Purnima and Dr Sanjyoti. Now it belongs to Dr Purnima only ... who is sleeping there cozily inside the room without noticing us coming in, taking a snap and khee-kheeing on a not-so-good joke ;-). Notice the balloon, Sanju still has a child left in her: if it goes away, she'll too ;-D.

Our first furniture

2005-02-05T06:13:00.000-08:00

Our first piece of furniture: the living room entertainment unit. We also got a dining unit with this, for crockery etc. Both still need to be polished, decorated and finally, filled up :-). Got them second-hand from Anand, my boss. Next in line are the wardrobe and a double bed.

Home and office; as in desktops

2005-02-05T06:02:00.000-08:00

Desktops at office and home respectively. Actually, the one at home should be termed broken-teepoy-top and is in fact a laptop. Dell GX on the left and HP Pavillion on the right. The one at home is also connected to the TV via a SVideo-RCA cable and doubles as an all-media player.

Puliyogare

2005-02-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

Tonight's menu had Puliyogare, tangy tamarind rice from the state of Karnataka. We felt our first attempt at it was quite good. Tangy and slightly spicy. We had it with leftover kadhi (curd curry) and paalak (spinach).

Day and night

2005-02-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

Sanju got some flowers yesterday. Gerberas and her favorite Nishigandh. Snap taken in the morning and then next in the night. The flowers had opened a bit in the water. The Nishigandh makes the hall sweetly fragrant.

Daal, kadhi, pickle and papad

2005-02-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

Garma-garam paalak daal with steaming kadhi, fried papad and spicy pickle on a cold evening. Whats missing from the picture are the wafts of steam coming off the rice and the aroma of hot kadhi.