how to get more out of my year..

if i was working for a company.... 52 weeks in a year - thats 104 saturday sundays + 30 casual/privilege/sick leaves.

thats a total of 134 days.... :-)

since i work for myself.. i cud take 2 sundays every month off.. thats 22 days gone.. a week off every month.. thats 77 days.. and....

......and i m still left with 35 days every year to do a long ride.....

a week long ride every month and a month long every year!!!

a memorable ride..

the 2007 monsoon ride to dangs ranks really as one of the craziest and funfilled rides 60 kph has done.. not for motorcycling maybe, but the getting together of folks, and the volcano of fun..

putting down the links here..

the masterpiece of a ride-report by kauk

the tribal wedding video

R- the film

enjoy!!!

Rajneeti

there once was a boy named prakash jha and he decided to make a film.

he took a sheet of spotless white paper and on the top wrote "RAJNEETI" in a sharp font. he loved the name of the film.

then he drew a figure of a sari clad lady, pallu on the head and one hand raised to herald her arrival. he painted her face white to distinguish her land of birth. next he drew the face of a suave clean shaven boy-man in rimless spectacles.

then he began to cry. coz he cudnt think of a story.

prakash's mommy came to his rescue. she suggested him to make a story on mahabharata, the evergreen block buster epic with all the masala for a wholesome hindi potboiler.

prakash was happy. he began to call the boys and uncles in the neighbourhood to play the evergreen characters. ajay, manoj, arjun, nana, naseer all agreed.

but when he called the new kapoor on the block for arjun, he said he wants to play michael. prakash was stumped and looked up his epic but couldnt find a michael.

michael who? he called up again.

Michael Corleone.

Arjun got the wind of that and decided he will play a yudhisthir cum bheem cum sonny corleone for the price of one.

prakash began to cry again and his mom came to his rescue. jha be, look at the bright side, u have characters from mahabharata and scenes from godfather to get inspired. prakash smiled. he liked the word inspired a lot.

and he made rajneeti. i saw. i cried.

i laughed too when -

1. katrina decides to accept arjun as her husband and there was a enlightened cat-call from the front.. isko bhi seetapur ka ticket chahiye.

2. kunti goes to meet karna to tell him that he is his son.. the same cat-call again... lol

Road Trip to Coorg

... digged out this half finished post from the drafts folder.. written 4 months ago and lay there.. just reminder to do things on time...

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its only a week old story now. but am amused by the pace of the city that clouds your memory so fast. next time hopefully will write as it happens.

20-05-10

finally.. am rid of all the ties to the work for the next 10 days.. discussed, instructed, delegated and forgotten.. can finally focus on the trip.. buying batteries, getting a haircut, meeting mom at sis's place and retiring for the night at s'cruz to avoid saifee having to drive in the morning to pick us up at kandivali.

21-05-10

we start at 6.00 am as scheduled.. target is to reach the jungle lodge at ganeshgudi by 6.00 pm. its saifee's new honda civic with automatic transmission on to her maiden long drive. its got no spare room with 4 adults, 2 kids, a baby and an assortment of small bags and waterbottles. taking a second car would have divided the small group so we avoided that, not to speak of the adventures of taking my 12 yr and 120k km old honda along. we did take her to mandu last oct and had our share of fun fixing an ageing leaking hose pipe 5 times on the road, finally resorting to a makeshift arrangement to replacing it with a sturdy brakehose that lasted just enough to get us back to mumbai safely.

the option of me taking the bike along was promptly shot down by everyone else, i suspect they dont want me to have more fun than they do. also the bike wud have slowed the car down and i argue no further.

its a 580 km drive to ganeshgudi (dandeli forest reserve) and decide to keep the breaks to the minimum to reach the destination in daylight.

breakfast and fuel stop on the expressway at khopoli and i take on the wheel. nice car and a boring highway but fast and efficient. music in the car is a bone of contention. kabir and sabiha dont like ours, we cant appreciate theirs and saifee cant bear any beyond a point.

sane words come to me and i tell the parents to learn to appreciate the music and other things their kids enjoy if they want to stay connected to them. funny how music can become walls between generations. i make a note to myself to follow that too. lol. kabir and i have real trouble picking and playing PS2 games, he thinks i am too boring coz i almost always pick those racing games, when the fun is in fighting wars and killing monsters. he was playing a war game once, i said its too violent and gory, he said its historical and he cant help it if history was violent. i shut up.

mum - pune - satara - kolhapur, where we stop for lunch around 1-30.

as we enter the state of karnataka, NH4 betters. the surface, the flowering plants on the divider, reflective strips, laybyes for bus stops, service roads..

approaching a petrol pump on a dug up service road, the civic scrapes a rock, one of the several in the days to follow to worry saifee abt the safety of his new shining car and doubt the sanity of allowing me to chart the route.

we miss the turn off belgaum, stay on NH4 till kittur and take a right to dandeli. the road is bumpy and civic's low ground clearance worries saifee further.

finally reach ganeshgudi at 6. a km long dirt track off the tar road takes us to the enigmatically named "old magazine house jungle lodge". turns out, the place was originally built to store gelatin sticks during the construction of dam over the kali river.

the cottages are decent and kabir is in depression over the "creepy crawlies". a 3 inch spider on his pillow worsens the situation. saifee rather undiplomatically announces the slaying of a scorpion in his own room. it aint cold but the campfire is lit and kabir takes refuge in it. the food is decent too. kiara is happy to be out of the confines of the car and busy playing with stones and mud and sticks. she knows no fear. yet.

22-05-10

you dont need an alarm in this place to wake up. i wake up to a cacophony of bird sounds and whistles.

though it was only a stopover for the night, we go for a coracle ride in the kali river. its a round basket for a boat. the river is magnificent and further down you can do white water rafting but we skip it. nice place to come back to.

we leave after a good breakfast. the route planned passes thru anshi forest to karwar. inquiries reveal its in bad shape. with the civic we are no position to discover the truth. so we are on the yellapur- ankola route and reach the NH17. lucky to spot a kamat's restaurant at ankola to stop for lunch.

having heard so much of it, pay om beach at gokarna a brief visit but cant stop kiara from getting into the waters. she loves it. its off a cliff. we park the car and then have to walk down the cliff to reach the beach. makes it very tucked in, but the weekend crowd spoils the fun.

as it gets dark, the drive on NH17 to mangalore gets slow and laborious. everybody is bored and we stop for dinner at udipi around 10 and reach the urban retreat in mangalore at midnight. theres a party on, of the coffee planters guild, and we are invited to join. but too tired to be interested.

23-05-10

wake up to find urban retreat a very homely place with a cozy patio at the back. we are recommended to visit the zoo and the artisan's village nearby which we do, instead of zooming towards coorg. zooming anyways is not possible. its a winding road uphill from mangalore to madikeri, the capital of coorg district. 140 km takes us 6 hours to negotiate and then another to reach linger by 6 on the bhagmandala road. its a beautiful drive but everyone is too cramped and waiting to get on the terrafirma. and the suspense of the place we will be spending the next 5 days in. i tell them its a homestay not a resort, and they are trying to figure if thats a good thing or otherwise.

the instructions to reach the place are clear, but we are escorted by a friend to the place. between the milestones reading 6 and 5 kms to bhagmandala is a bus stop on the left with a dirt track adjoining. 100 m inside after a few twists is a clearing to park yr car. then u walk down the track and come down to a flat open space with a cottage set back. a traditional construction, 2 rooms with attached toilets, one with a cozy attic bed, large verendah on three sides with a sloping mangalore tiled roof. coffee plantation of the slopy sides of the property and one side sloping down to a strip of paddy fields.

its been raining for the past few days and everything around is green. we are greeted with an overcast sky giving way to a light drizzle. complimented with fresh creamy coffee and onion pakoras by harish, our man friday for the next 5 days.

the place has a very private feel, and i guess people take time to warm up to it. the website for linger promises books and there is just a shelf full of those right now, but a good collection for everyone to find one. saifee does manage to finish one in his five days and really happy for it. kabir is lost but for the book. he is 11 and i guess he needs to have some company of his age. next time, i ll have asad or kani come along with us. he is also probably bored also coz there were no hose pipes to fix this time around. lol.

dinner is traditional coorgi food. pandi is a famed coorgi pork dish but no takers in our group of vegetarians and muslims.

24-05-10

bhagmandala.. mangoes ..medikeri.. east end.. cycling.. walk in the field

25-05-10

river.. kakabe .. talcauvery

26-05-10

dubare nisargdhaam bailkuppe

27-05-10

bhagmandala .. eve to talcauvery

28-05-10

drive to shimoga

29-05-10

drive to mumbai

Coorg Trip Planning

here we are into the week when the road trip to a 5 day holiday in coorg begins.
with 2 days to drive to and 2 fro, its gonna be as much time on the road as lingering in coorg.
stopping at dandeli for the night on the first days drive from mumbai, is sounding really exciting. to wake up in a forest lodge, ambling through the dandeli and anshi forest to reach mangalore for the second night's stopover. mangalore to bhagarmandala (where linger is) is just a short hop for the third days morning.
was looking at a lot of homestay options in coorg, abundant on the web, but when Vishu sent me a link to LINGER, found it too full of promises to look beyond. will write review of it here later after the trip.
lots to do in coorg and a place to "do just nothing" in LINGER, the world is wide open.
friends from 60kph are planning to assemble at sakleshpur, 100 kms away, after their sunfeast marathon run.. that sounds great.. will go meet them up or invite them over.

looking up for stopovers and planning for coorg, came across this interesting resort off karwar, too bad its closing today for monsoons and we ll have to target it some other time. next wud have to be a kerala trip, karwar makes for a good midpoint. :-)

21st - mum-dandeli

22nd - dandeli-mangalore

23rd to 27th - chill@coorg

28th - drive to hubli

29th - hubli-mumbai

route map on http://www.motowhere.com/maps/route/mumbai-to-coorg-and-back

Rajnikant Facts

its been a while since i added anything here, and this too is just a copy paste from a mail just received. but this IS so hilarious.. cudnt resist spreading it around..

feeling really bad for half the world who doesnt know who R is... R will probably crack the earth into 2 for this.. :-)

1. Rajanikanth makes onions cry
2. Rajanikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.
3. Ghosts are actually caused by Rajanikanth killing people faster than Death can process them.
4. Rajanikanth can build a snowman..... out of rain.
5. Rajanikanth can strangle you with a cordless phone.
6. Rajanikanth can drown a fish.
7. When Rajanikanth enters a room, he doesn't turn the lights on,............. he turns the dark off.
8. When Rajanikanth looks in a mirror the mirror shatters, because not even glass is stupid enough to get in between Rajanikanth and Rajanikanth.
9. Brett Favre can throw a football over 50 yards. Rajanikanth can throw Brett Favre even further.
10. The last digit of pi is Rajanikanth. He is the end of all things.
11. Rajanikanth does not know where you live, but he knows where you will die.
12. Bullets dodge Rajanikanth.
13. A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot
belongs to Rajanikanth and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
14. Rajanikanth' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools Rajanikanth.
15. If you spell Rajanikanth wrong on Google it doesn't say, "Did you mean Rajanikanth? " It simply replies, "Run while you still have the chance."
16. Rajanikanth can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
17. Once a cobra bit Rajanikanth' leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
18. When Rajanikanth gives you the finger, he's telling you how many seconds you have left to live.
19. Rajanikanth can kill two stones with one bird.
20. Rajanikanth was once on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and was the first to spin. The next 29 minutes of the show consisted of everyone standing around awkwardly, waiting for the wheel to stop.
21. Leading hand sanitizers claim they can kill 99.9 percent of germs. Rajanikanth can kill 100 percent of whatever he wants.
22. There is no such thing as global warming. Rajanikanth was cold, so he turned the sun up.
23. Rajanikanth can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.
24. Rajanikanth has a deep and abiding respect for human life? unless it gets in his way.
25. Rajanikanth once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"
26. In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Rajanikanth could use to kill you, including the room itself.
27. Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Behind every dead man, there is Rajanikanth.
28. Rajanikanth destroyed the periodic table, because Rajanikanth only recognizes the element of surprise.
29. Rajanikanth got his drivers license at the age of 16 Seconds.
30. With the rising cost of gasoline, Rajanikanth is beginning to worry about his drinking habit.
31. The square root of Rajanikanth is pain. Do not try to square Rajanikanth, the result is death.
32. When you say "no one's perfect", Rajanikanth takes this as a personal insult.
33. Outer space exists because its afraid to be on the same planet with Rajnikant
34. Rajnikant has counted to infinity - twice
35. When Rajnikant does a pushup, he isnt lifting himself up, he's pushing earth down
36. Rajnikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
37. Rajnikant doesnt wear a watch. HE decides what time it is.
38. Rajnikant gave Mona Lisa that smile
39. Rajnikant can slam a revolving door
40. Rajnikan's house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.
41. Rajnikant grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.
42. If you google search "Rajnikant getting kicked"your search will generate 0 results. It just doesn't happen.
43. It takes Rajnikant 20 mins to watch 60 minutes
44. The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajnikant kicked one of the corners off.
45. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Rajnikant lives in Chennai
46. Rajnikant once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink
47. The only thing that runs faster and longer than Rajnikant are his films.
48. Rajnikant’s every step creates a mini whirlwind. Hurricane Katrina was the result of a morning jog.
49. Where there is a will, there is a way. Where there is Rajnikant there is no other way.
50. His email address is Gmail@Rajnikanth.com