Missing you....

We first met at MG Road. We started our journey together with a trip to the hills...


from then on we are hooked, inseparable.
We went places together, to the plains.. to the fields..

We enjoyed all the seasons, the summers, the winters, the monsoons together alike...


she changed the way I think,
she changed the way I see,
she changed the way I feel,
she made me go places,
her amazing memory made me remember things
together we had seen the world, been to places, had a wonderful company...

but finally...
out of nowhere...
without a warning...
without a hint...
without a clue...
without a sign...
she had decided to part ways with me...
leaving me behind in the company of some wonderful moments we shared...


It's hard to say goodbye...
harder to digest the fact that you are no more...
I miss you my dear cam...
miss you so much...
I don't think I can afford to get you back to life...
rip my s3is...
As I go on with life, I feel the void you have left...
Your place might be taken by someone else later, but you are always special...
This post is to tell you how special you are...
You will be remembered... for what you made me, done to me and given me!

Bheemeswari - Part 1

A post pending from 3 weeks. Finally a 4 day leave on grounds of ill health helping me post this.

All right here we go - as usual our manager B was grinning wide when our partner confirmed funding for team outing and with no second thought the option to choose the place has been passed on to yours truly. After being tired with the usual city resorts, I thought this is the time to try Jungle Lodges and Resorts day visits. Quickly checking facts of JLR we zeroed in on Bheemeswari on the banks of Cauvery. In fact JLR had 3 nature and fishing camps located on the banks of cauvery - Doddamakalli and Galibore being the other two.

Off late our team had become more family centric- hence I starte calling it AUT, well nothing to do with Applicatin Under Test, but it's the "Aunties n Uncles Team". The moment guys hear about a trip they start it-"only day trips","I can't leave my husband/wife, but I can't bring them either", "I have a baby to take care"! "My in-laws won't let me go", "we are expecting guests"..... the list goes on. Whatever, we realized that we cannot afford an overnight trip with team anymore! Hence the day trip is best for us. Once we finalized the place the usual games of "Who's IN" and "Who's OUT" for the trip started. Finally 2 people dropped out. So we ended up with 9.

Let me stop this crap and start the drive. Soothing the nerves of our manager, sap(my best buddy at office) and I made it just in time for the 7-00 am deadline for transport and for a change everything went smooth with transport and breakfast and bloody hell I again endedup counting money, collecting bills, maintaining accounts! WTF!? When will I relax and enjoy the trip as a member than worrying about money, food for driver, route etc. We hit Adigas at Banashankari for some yummy breakfast and started off.

The travel till Kanakapura had no surprises and the tiny town of Kanakapura which seems to have got some inspiration from Bangalore with roads being laid and expanded! Guys reminded about the Water rafting and i went searching for an ATM. I was in 2 minds on water rafting but on a safer side carried enough cash to try it just in case my decision changed. After travelling down to Satahanur we took the right turn to Muthathi. The terrain started changing and we didn't feel that its been hardly 1.5 hours away from bangalore. This is the beauty of bangalore, travel for 2 hours in all 4 directions of bangalore, you end up seeing different jungles and eautiful landscapes!

Finally after traversing mini ghat roads, we reached the place - "Cauvery Fishing camp aka Bheemeshwari Fishing and Nature camp" at 10 am after paying a 50 RS village developement fee which I wonder where it ends up. The moment we entered the resorts, we are in for surprises.. 1. The resort manager was not informed of our arrival (I made payment just the evening before the day we left) 2. Cauvery is in full flow!! Man you gotta see the beautiful cauvery which appear to be flowing slow and silent but a closer look tells you that it's a strong current! The monkey menace has to be noted here, these guys having used to visitor littering have become smarter. One chap jumped into the van and despite of Shalini's balooned body and trying to converse in English with him/her, he/she didn't give a damn flicked a packet of chips!! Evolution hmmm..

The bird watcher and the naturalist enthu in me could no longer be hidden. I started with bird watching pulling the whole team into watching the Green bee eater, the king fisher and the red rumped swallows! Most of them wondered how to use the binocs!!Whatever after a refreshing welcome drink (my favorite- lime juice), we were asked if we are game for rafting since another team are leaving for rafting then, we choose to do it in the afternoon after lot of debating. The first activity was a trek up the hill to the view point.

While yasvanth and I were busy chasing the butterflies with cameras, rest of the team walked half a kilometer and were shouting. So we ran and caught up with them. I soon realized why we were served lime juice. The sun is blazing and trek at 11-00 am is not a good idea espcially with 90% obese persons in the gang!! (uff including me). I was dissapointed that this camp do not have a naturalist! But still, I love JLR camps for the ambience, the places and the food! Although I have been to only 3 (Bandipur, Bannerghatta and Bheemeswari.. oh wait all B's). The log huts make me think wild and feel like staying back there for some more time.

Before you forget about the trek, let me go back,.. so with lots of huff and puffs we reached the view point after 45 minuts. I was the last one to reach clicking pictures and complaining about the trek not being a walk. Well there is a big difference between a nature walk and trek. A trek is something you start early in the day (to restirct loss of energy due to sun) and your aim is to reach a particular place by so & so time and come back and time is the utmost thing. But a nature walk is where you hardly walk... yes if you have the keen eyes and the company of a true naturalist like Karthik, every step shows you something and catches your imagination and attention. Every flower had a story to tell every bird makes you think about it's behavior, every thing in the jungle tells you a story if only you can hear! Unfortunately our urban souls could not hear or understand those and half of our team mates think I am crazy and they hoot, shout and scream.. thinking it's a picnic place.


The view from top is just amazing... with cauvery flowing full, it's just WOW! Here is how it looked like. Imaging one sititng here and enjoying the view.

The late monsson showers ensured good patches of grass on the hill.

here is the watch tower

and the butterfly that made me wait and wait to pose like this..

Finally the JLR guy who accompanied us thought we had enough fun and just before we started back, we spotted the water rafting group and the 12x zoom + digital zoom helped me click this one at the "splashing moment"More to continue in Part 2...

All paths leads to ONE

All prayers reaches the ONE, no matter who you are!


One of those photos where I personally do not worry about clarity/colors/exposure while posting. Clicked on my mobile in a hurry not to invade their privacy. While this unison works here, 200 kms away their brothers are fighting for wrong reasons! I love india for these moments and for the truth that we still live in unity despite of some fools trying to interpret religion in a wrong way !

Beat d heat..

What are you doing this summer to beat the heat??

Here is some cool thing to do this summer!!




If that was not enough, spend the evenings at a beautiful place with your loved one's



For the non-bangaloreans reading this, that's the lung space of bangalore named lalbagh

Well, house hunting is eating my free time and more on that in a detailed post.For now, wish me a good spotting (read house)

The "much needed" vacation

Finally, I grabbed time to update my blog after looooong vacation. Had a memorable trip down to Coastal karnataka. Watched the last sun set of last year followed by the sunrise on the first day of the year that made me spell bound(i still had the images reeling in front of my eyes).

A detailed report on the vacation will follow. But for the time being here are some pics I loved- made during the vacation.

"Makara Sankranti" is the time of the year where the farmers bring home their yield and rejoice with family. Here is the corn yield pile! Wish you all a happy sankranthi!



Here is a NATURE CANVAS I found at Bandipur at the day-break!!


I tried some B & W images off late and loved the feel in these..here are couples of them..


One more... look at the "change of times" in this one!!



I sing off this post with one beautiful image. Here is the First sun of the year.. emerging from the clouds-clad hills near Agumbe. Wishing a great beginning in your life and a great year ahead!!

Random Update

Nothing much, just landed in office straight from a trip to hometown and bloody APSRTC buses always runs slow and I repeatedly trust them and ends up feeling cheated. Finally after some grueling 16 hours journey I went straight to office (barring the 2 hours break to fresh up) and half asleep as i was typing this post. (continuing it on Wednesday below.. )

Trip to home town was refreshing and urban birding was exciting. I started noticing things at home town which I never did before!I tried sharing the observations with our family and thankfully they think I am not insane!!Here is the strange perch of the White throated King Fisher that is commonly found across.
Must be waiting for it's mate to play see-saw!??It is not it's usual perch, once can find it usually near water bodies, wonder what is it up to?

I always felt that my hometown do not have those special or bright or colorful birds. But I was proved wrong. Just when I moved out for a haircut, there came the highlight of my whole trip.. the Eurasian Golden Oriole. What a beauty!!!I was very happy to see this one at my hometown! Not surprisingly my uncle never noticed it.,. I told you it's just a matter of "noticing" things that makes a difference..

These bright golden yellow birds leaves you at awe and this one is no exception. It is a winter migrant to South India and not a "resident". The Drongos are chasing it away from their territory. This made me resolve that I would explore more wooded areas around my hometown pretty soon.

Now I am sure all of us had seen this guy near our homes.

This is the DRONGO and look at it's beautiful tail, the big give-away. They are found very widely across India. A couple seems to have nested close to our home and they put up a great show.

Next came the black beauty - the male ASIAN KOEL with it's stunning RED eyes!
A generic note- All beautiful and colorful birds are male!! (although we have very few exceptions). So next time you see a beautiful bird with a bright colors or plumage, the chances that it is MALE is high.God is a Fair man!:)

Besides these, I noticed the Ants and their relationship with the ticks (another post) and few other birds. Finally the urge in me to find our the birding places around my home town is increasing!! This trip had given the right inspiration!!So donno where I end up...

Now if you are tired of watching and reading about birds... (you need to bear with this trend in my new blog for a while..) here is a Homo Sapien at work..

A naturographer at work!! or PAW- Photgprapher at work .. the way my friend Deepa called it.

The most exciting thing I am looking forward is the 15 day vacation that we are going to enjoy this year end starting 19 December and ending 4th Jan.. Thank god I am with this company!!! (aah I can smell some J factor)

Bise-foto-bath

I already warned you in the first post that I will be bugging you with pics. So here we go... enjoy the Bisi(e)-foto-bath series that goes on.....
(click on pics to get better resolution. I am yet to get a hang of this blogger. May be time to create flickr account)

The Web-hanger..



Place: Lalbagh, Flower show
Cooked on : August-14-2007
Clicked this guy at Lalbagh flower show last year

D Quote:

Place: Autorickshaw
Cooked on: July-24-2007
What a quote man!! I instantly fell in love and clicked it on my mobile.
Let me try translating it with whatever little Kannada knowledge I had.
***********************
"Birth is FREE...
Death is CERTAIN...
Love is ETERNAL..."
************************

The Fall collection!!

Place: Lalbagh
Cooked on: October-19-2007
The FALL collection....!

OK that's it folks. Stay hungry till next round. aa bisi bisi.. bisi bisi...