A beautiful weekend getaway from Bangalore

Since it rained bombs in Bangalore on Friday, we friends decided to beat the terror fear by heading towards a village called Kaiwara.
Kaiwara is a nature-blessed, picturesque village near Chinthamani town in Kolar district and 60+ Kms away from Bangalore. Six of us spent our Sunday there and we enjoyed every bit of it. On Sunday morning, when we wanted a place that is within an hour’s drive, I suggested Kaiwara and few of us made calls and surfed a bit to find the route and other details of this little-known village.
How to reach: Bangalore -> Hoskote->Kaiwara. Go towards Old Madras road till Hoskote and take the left at the arch where the road forks into 3. (If you go straight, you’ll reach Kolar). Kaiwara or Kaivara (as the tourism name plate reads) is 29 Kms from this arch. On reaching the village centre which is symbolized by an auto stand and few shops, continue straight for 9 Kms. To reach the cave temple, take right where there is a Kannada board directing towards Narasimha temple.
Initially, we did not take this right turn, but proceeded ahead. You get to see lush green trees (being July end, rain gods have been blessing), boulders and hillocks of small, medium and large sizes.
We parked our car in one of the plains nearby a hillock and started our trek towards the boulders. It was a calm, quiet and very silent place – cold winds blew and soothed the body and spirit. The soil was red and the boulders were thrown all over the place. It seemed as if it was a school playground only that the game was to roll the boulders to any desired spot. There were a few trees and lot of thorns all over the ground. After a 10 minute trek, the place turned dark (it was 12.30 noon) and before we could look up to the sky, the clouds started coming down and they came down heavily. There was no time to think and all six of us started running back to the car, as there was no tree nearby. But the rain bet us and we all got drenched from top to bottom before reaching the car. Our clothes and shoes turned red with mud and still we got into the car and colored its interiors with red.
Within a few minutes, the sky cleared and after a bit of musing, we re-started the trek. By the time we reached the boulders, the clothes had partly dried thanks to the winds and we felt better though the shoes were spoiled. Dor removed her slippery wet slippers and braved trekking on bare feet and Muku had to carry them back- he was happy to play Bharatan for his wife’s padukas. We conquered few boulders, climbed those with step-like stones and had a good time. It is a very scenic place and all you can see around are hillocks and boulders. It is a visual treat for the human eyes and camera lens. Ram was engrossed in clicking snaps. No other humans were around till we spotted a shepherd with his 65 goats grazing. After moving a bit forward, there was a woman collecting wood and a boy, probably her son sat on a boulder and was staring at the rocks for a long time. Two of them were tired by now and enjoyed a smoke from the hillock. Some of the rocks were big enough for rappelling. On the rock that we stood, there was enough space for spreading the picnic basket. Since the rock was wet, we decided to return to the car for lunch!
Again, the clouds overtook us and the sky opened up once more with full force. Mahesh took us to a six-foot rock behind which 3 of us took shelter. From there, we could see the beauty of the big ground that lay ahead of us, the hillocks etc. Soon, visibility was reduced to few meters and a white smoke replaced all the big objects. It was a good 15-minute rain that paved way for a clear sky. The drizzle continued and since the rock that sheltered us started getting wet on our side, we started our return journey. The rocks looked cleaner and I keep wondering why there were yellow patches on them. A stream from the rainy waters started gushing and it was a nice sight with sun turning bright again.
It was 3.30 pm when we had the aloo and mooli parathas that Mahesh& Satish had picked up for lunch. The tiring trek, rains and the beauty of the place made the parathas tastier. Dor’s Lindt chocolates turned into desserts. Since it was wet, we could not spread the picnic blanket and used the boot of the car as the table counter. Well, it started drizzling again as expected and we rushed indoors and further soiled the car. We could not avoid it this time as we had to drive to the cave which was shut by the legendary Bheema.
We took the same road down and proceeded to the Kannada board and took a left (Remember to go right if you are on the way from village). After a few hundreds of meters, the white temple building can be seen at the basement of a big hillock. As you can expect, monkeys ruled this area and they still are. Some of them stayed back to dry themselves and the rest proceeded towards the Narasimha temple. You have to climb around 100 steps to go up and this temple is different from the usual structures. Wondering how? It has a terrace from which you get wonderful views. There is a Yagna mantapa which has lot of small idols including the Dasavataram series of Lord Vishnu. A 8-foot statue of Lord Narasimha and Lakshmi(my guess) can be seen against one of the walls. Next to the mantapa is a very small entrance which is formed by the edge of the cave rock. One has to sit down or kneel to see a small idol of Narasimha inside the cave rock. Probably, it is a symbolic representation that mankind has to kneel in front of the super power. Well, aarthi and pooja was being done by a priest who was also accepting donations and giving receipt bills. We spent some more time and hurried back to the car when the rains came down again.
We were told that the road ahead has a picturesque view and a big solo rock and so drove up the cliff. The views on both sides were awesome. After a while, we returned in the same route and there was a spot with a raised single track with small pond in red color on one side and lush green bushes on the other side. Ram went down to click some pictures with Satish protecting the camera with the umbrella. Once inside, the camera was wiped clean and dry and waited for the next click which happened a few times on our way back.
The return journey was equally wet and I was continuously reminding Ram to reduce the speed, who was enjoying the good road inspite of the waters. Temperature has reduced drastically and the AC did not help either. It was 6.30 pm when we reached the Marthahalli Coffee day to warm ourselves.
It was a memorable day full of exotic views and wet experiences and would recommend Kaiwara for those souls who want a weekend away from the maddening crowd.
Food : We carried our lunch and except for the small shops at the village centre, did not find any restaurant.
Road: 60 Kms from Bangalore. Very good road. It is NH is our guess.
Best time to visit : Monsoon and post-monsoons, winter too. Expect it to be hot in summer.
Ideal for: Mild treks, picnics.
Request: It is a very beautiful place and help it to remain so. Please do not litter and carry back all your carry-bags and plastic containers

Know Knol -from Google's stable

Time for another web tool from Google - Knol ! Already there are few hundred knols available.
Google has once again improvised on the existing Wiki model and blogging to come up with KNOwLedge share ? Is Knol derived from Know(ledge)? Or is there a meaning to it? Is it a fictional character? Could not find it in English directory as well ... Let me know the meaning/ other reasoning behind Knol, if u know!
Here is an excerpt on Knol from Economic Times.
Google Inc opened its website Knol to the public on Wednesday, allowing people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows anonymity.
The name of the service is a play on an individual unit of knowledge, DuPont said, and entries on the public website, http://knol.google.com, are called "knols". Google conducted a limited test of the site beginning in December. Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages.
But unlike blogs, Knol encourages writers to reduce what they know about a topic to a single page that is not chronologically updated. "What we want to get away from is 'this last voice wins' model which is very difficult if you are a busy professional," DuPont said.
Google wants to rank entries by popularity to encourage competition. For example, the first knol on "Type 1 Diabetes" is by Anne Peters, director of the University of Southern California's Clinical Diabetes Programs. As other writers publish on diabetes, Google plans to rank related pages according to user ratings, reviews and how often people refer to specific pages, DuPont said.
Knol focuses on individual authors or groups of authors in contrast to Wikipedia's subject entries, which are updated by users and edited behind the scenes. Knol does not edit or endorse the information and visitors will not be able to edit or contribute to a knol unless they have the author's permission. Readers will be able to notify Google if they find any content objectionable.
Knol is a hybrid of the individual, often opinionated entries found in blogs and the collective editing relied on by Wikipedia and other wiki sites. The service uses what it calls "moderated collaboration" in which any reader of a specific topic page can make suggested edits to the author or authors, who retain control over whether to accept, reject or modify changes before they are published. In its early stages, Knol remains a far cry from Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org, which boasts 7 million collectively edited articles in 200 languages.

Go Egosurfing

Today, I was bored (Ur guess is right - it was ciesta time!) and tried egosurfing. For those who want to refresh the memory (again being post noon session), egosurfing is Ego (ie I) + Surfing ==>browsing on one's own name - family name, nick name, pet name and u name what not - using search engines.
On one hand, I feel happy that there are lots like me searching their names in the millions of terabytes of data, otherwise, there might not have been a name for searching their own names! And today I restricted myself to blogs only! Can this process be called as egoblogsurfing ?
For a moment, I paused to think why anyone would search for his/her name?
Here are some reasons I could think of:
1. Eager/Curious/Anxious to know if something has been written abt me
2. Interested in knowing if there are celebrities or interesting people with my name
3. Trying to match interests and similarities with the same-named person
4. How common/uncommon my name is
5. Its so easy to type one's own name when bored
6. Egotistic ?
and probably more...
But, isn't the basic need is physiological? A name is not an identity tag alone, its much more than that!
Don't we tend to recognize ourselves by our name, though we were born much before/after the naming happens! Is it becoz we say our names more than any other word - this starts even before schooling, with 'My name is ' - and a name is how we present ourselves to the outside world. If I say 'I am Laddoo', am I only Laddoo (for the sweet-tooth)?
If for the argument, if my name is 'Me', then, amn't I only the name and not heart, soul, characteristics, vices etc etc? What about the branches of science(?!) numerology or nameology ? In hindu mythology, any God has numerous names and the most powerful ones have infinite names as well! In such a scenario, how can a single name stand out as an identity?
BTW, how do think Gods might egosurf ?:-)

Innovative Film city @ Bangalore

Last Sunday, we had been to the newly opened Innovative Film city just outside Bangalore(or probably part of the greater Benaglooru) with friends. It is a huge area of fun and entertainment for the whole family. Though it is open for public, one can see everywhere that there are lot more coming up and many barren structures and make-shift arrangements. Guess, the phase1 has been opened to get money inflow to sponsor the rest of the phases. That could be a reason for the sky-high entry fees for any of the attractions once you enter the campus. That does not deter Bangaloreans from crowding this place in the weekends, esp. the kids and college students!
The main entrance has a nominal fee of Rs.50 per person and this means that you can enter the complex and do widow sighting/ shopping and only that! For each attraction inside one has to shell out an average of Rs.100 bucks per person. (The tickets vary from Rs.50 to Rs.150)
Attractions:
Ripley's Believe it or not! Its worth a visit esp. for children in 7-15 age group and the curious souls. As I haven't been to any international Ripley's exhibit, I am not in a position to compare it. My rating : 3/5
Louis Tussad's wax museum: We get to see few Indian and more international celebrities in wax statues - only that the quality is poor. Only, Dalai Lama was realistic and others were badly done and most of them had brown skin tones. The worst one was a disfigured Diana! The height ratio was incorrect in almost all of them :-( Missing were prominent Indian celebrities like Indira Gandhi, Ash or SRK who stand tall in Madame Tussads in London. A casual look at Prince Charming's hand reveals flowing/melted wax/colors! Lot of scope for improvement when compared with its counterparts across the globe. My rating: 1/5
Dinosaur park:It comes across as a basic/ primary park with plants and a dozen creatures with minimal animations. An unrealistic dinosaur who can wag its tail or open its mouth can be interesting for the first timers or very small kids. If you want to look up in awe at the mammoth creatures, this is not the place. And its definitely not worth the entrance fee! My rating: 1/5
There is a fossil museum next to it which we dint go and don't regret also, after the Dinosaur experience.

Artifical beach: This is what I would call as total scam! After paying 150 bucks per head, you enter only to see a very small wave pool and beach sand with benches, but a few hundreds of people on a sunday! The 'waving' happens once in half an hour and does not last beyond 5-10 minutes. The waves are too mild to have any impact!

Good things abt the beach: Nice benches to lay lazing(Might be good to prevent the heat and light of sun on summer days)! Fine palm trees and the environmental design and setup are good. Pool has no swimming costume requirements which is good for families, but at the same time doesnot give a clean look or hygienic! We could see the cleaning staff in action throughout and the guards whistling at the children left to play by themselves. Lot of balls, tubes etc to play inside water. Then, there is a mini volleyball setup. My rating: 2/5 Cartoon city: This is free to enter zone and pay-for rides where there are interesting rides for kids. I liked the cartoons at the entrance :-) My rating: 3/5

Mirror maze: Heard that it is very good, but the length of the queue throughout the day deterred us from venturing in!

4D Movie Theater: It was crowded all the time. The booking software had glitches(like any other s/w) and dint let us book in advance. Whenever we join the queue just before the show timing, there were no tickets. So missed this one as well :-(

Mini-Golf : Too mini !

Go-Karting : Too small to try! (Though, I am a not a pro!)

Food courts: Good variety of food - veg, non-veg, North & South Indian choices. Quality of food was good in 3 outlets that we tried. Only the place was not at all enough for the weekend crowd. My rating: 3/5

Parking facilities: When we reached the place (it is close to Toyoto @ Bidadi and a few Kms after Wonderla on Mysore road) around 10.45am, we had to park the car 300m down the entrance. And in the evening, I could see cars parked even beyond 700m and offered me solace!

The upcoming structures at the entrance are huge and definitely a way-forward among other Bangalore attractions. Model of an old theatre(talkies, should I say) showed a peep into past and the hut-shop was 100% realistic ! Overall I would rate this place 2/5 and its worth a visit, especially in groups and for the entire family members, though you might find the wallet screaming out loud later. If possible, avoid weekends (which is difficult while planning in groups). BTW, why is it called film city ? any clue will be of help.

(Added a few pictures, on request)

Why do my investments or finance need revision?

' You need to have a relook at your investment portfolio!'
That's what every Tom & Harry, newspapers, so-called finance advisors, probably even the "parrot" astrologers say these days! How true is it? How different is the scenario now ? How does US mortgage issues affect a common man in India? (A woman is never common as she is always special :-) )
Let me try explaining in lay man's term (In my MBA exams, I had to use all jargons and even formulae while answering any question, to get those precious marks! Thank God that blogging has made life easier. lol )

Well, the major difference between the good old times and the current struggling period is that there money supply in the system is reducing and more money is being absorbed into the system by RBI. In economic terms, there was more money chasing the goods and supply went up more than the demand. To set this balance right, Govt. has evoked measures like increasing repo rate , CRR(Cash reserve ratio) which influence or force the common man and special woman. What do they respond? They are intended to consume less and save more or invest more. And with the stock exchanges being ripped apart and real estate facing its sickening corrections, the best choice is to go for debt instruments as they are more attractive. i.e. We are giving back the monies to the banks as deposits or govt. bonds to get higher returns and in economic terms, money is being sucked out of the system. This will go on till the balance between D&S returns.
If this sucking continues, there will be a stage when there is not enough money in the system to meet the demands; This is when we can say that the cycle has reached its switch-over state. Then, a good govt. will arrange for pumping the money back into the system. How? This can be achieved by doing exactly the opposite - reducing the interest rates for term deposits and making loans feasible. Now the common man is attracted to consume more and save less thereby releasing more fluidity.
Its a simple carrot and stick trick, only that there are causalities to the common man.

But why? As one can easily imagine, this is a cycle and as per natural laws,it has to go through its full cycle, even though the radius (i.e.timeperiod) can be varied depending upon other macro-economic factors (like inflation, GDP growth, Govt. policies, global impacts etc). Talking of inflation, it is an indicator of changing times and rings the bell to the people and opposition parties alike.

This scenario can be thought of as a chemical equation where the atomic number and mass number of the elements/compounds on both sides should match for any stable reaction. Add to this equation, the impending general elections and thereby populist political behavior and expectations as catalyst.
But all those who have studied chemistry know that there is an exception to this rule which is the release of energy to equate the both sides!

i.e. Nuclear equations - That is the icing to this cake and definitely not the UPA !

Food for thought

Received an interesting forward and thought of posting it here...
Before u continue to read, let me tell you the reasons for posting it
- The topic is relevant in today's scenario of inflation and ever-rising oil prices.
- This is based on Beer game which creates the same effect, only that it is studied from a supply chain perspective and here it is the end consumer perspective!
Here is the story!

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the grocery store he pays 60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozen at a time. One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72cents. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are 76 cents a dozen.

When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "The price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly". This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. He checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven out of business. The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors.
With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to t he grocery stores. And on and on and on.

As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there. He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.

Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "Cakes and baking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen.

This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man says, " There must be something we can do about the price of eggs".

He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs.

Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need. He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.
The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe wouldn't need any all week.

The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.

At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs. To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price.

The distributor said, " I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free". T he distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again.

The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time. Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again".

The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those chickens just kept on laying. Fin ally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs.

But only a few cents.

The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen."

Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers.

The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.

And those chickens kept on laying.

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell.

The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price.

And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled to the pump? The dealer's tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the oil fiends.

Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down.

Think about it.

As an added note...When I buy $10.00 worth of gas that leaves my tank a little under quarter full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas for $2.65 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.15. If you have your tank full of $2.65 gas you don't have room for the $2.15 gas.

You might not understand the economics of only buying two eggs at a time but, you can't buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff.

Also, don't buy anything else at the gas station; don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down..."

Just think of this concept for a while.

Why we love animal / bird-watching?

For a moment,I thought it is counter-intuitive for humans to go miles and miles for a hobby called bird-watching or crossing moutains and seas for a jungle-safari or a forest trek for hours together in search of bisons, elephants, wild cats and feel disappointed on spotting only the herbivorous deers and rabbits! Shouldn't we feel happy that we are safe to be out of the vicinity of the man-eaters or the other perils of the forest. Why do we take our children to crocodile or snake parks , when we know that they are the most dangerous creatures?
If you think through these questions, I expect the answers to vary across! Some of the probable prominent reasons are:
1. Humans are curious to know about nature and her creations
2. Search for proof of evolution theory
3. The happiness we get in connecting with nature, by spotting the wild animals which we think as pure forms
4. We are amazed by their characteristics and appearance
5. We are inspired by Nat-Geo and Discovery Channel journalists & photographers
6. The process or journey to the destination in equally interesting
7. Educational reasons
8. Business reasons - Poaching or hunting or harming
9. Journalism
10. Anything else?

These are some of the reasons I can think of!
I had been to a bird sanctuary last weekend and felt immensely happy to see so many species of birds. The mere sight of them brings in cheer and lights up the spirits!
Let me try a travelogue with the pictures I took in a separate post, soon.

Significance of Sixty

I am now wondering why 60 is a significant number in one's lifetime ? There must be some reasons in the literature - In certain culture, 60th age signifies rebirth and is celebrated as the person gets to re-live the years 60 before. Well, in most of the Indian systems, 60 years form a cycle. I presume that there is an astronomical reason for the figure 60! So, once a person reaches 60, he/she enjoys the same year as that of his/her birth ! That's how it is a re-birth ! It is celebrated with family and friends and is a good opportunity for fun and merriment.
Interesting reason for the tradition, right? Well, let me also tell u the reason for choosing this topic!
This is my 60th post and I started writing that only to realise that I was not aware of the reasoning. Did a quick and brief research and found this!
Long live blogging!

Thoda Pyar Thoda Magic & nothing else!

Another disappointing movie (last week, I was heavily disappointed by Priyadarsan's Mere Baap Pehle Aap). I remember an old children's movie that flopped- Raju Chacha and the common thing between the two is Rishi Kapoor, as per my limited knowledge!
Well, y the magic failed this time ? Because it was neither convincing nor entertaining. Then y magic? Rani as the lead was not a good choice for Angel - she comes across rather as an Aunty angel than a Didi-angel. Both weight and make-up had further spoiled her looks. Saif and Ameesha are good for skin show. Music is not inspiring and so is the screenplay. Rishi as the God brings smile, but has only a few screenshots.
In the first half, I waited for the magic and interval. In the second half, waited for the end.
Kids and parents can give this movie a miss and wait for a better angel.