The Coonoor Flower Show

I have missed the Bangalore flower show the last few years. And this time too I did. But then I made up for it in Coonoor. That place is a riot of flowers! And the flowers we pay 10s of rupees here are growing like weeds out there! Sigh....

Here are some of the beauties...

The Bougainvillea country

Bougainvillea is the most ubiquitous feature in Hyderabad. The old Nizam's city and currently nicknamed Cyberabad is certainly more greener than bengaLooru is. Even the road to new airport is green with new saplings planted. While the road to new bengaLooru airport is a graveyard of uprooted trees (one is hoping this will change).

Here are some pictures from the pearl city.

The flowers brighten the otherwise drab coloured walls of Golkonda Fort

More at the gate of Golkonda fort


This beauty was standing at the Ramoji Film city (Only thing I marvelled at besides the sheer genius of business brain behind this venture)

At one of the many Qutb Shahi Tombs

En route to Gachibowli where the hi-tech city is growing

More posts on Hyderabad as soon as I find time.

I am falling in love

With God's own country

The houseboats on the backwaters

Chinese fishing nets at Fort Kochi

Alleppey Backwaters

Earth's little gifts

I had been on the road for four days continously. I had slept fitfully in the car and hotel rooms for about 5 hours every night. I had heard heart wrenching stories of people hit by Tsunami. I thought after 2 years these people had found their ground that Tsunami had swept away but they are still struggling. They had recovered their spirits and were raring to go but they were waiting for that little push to start off ...again. Distressed yet inspired I was returning to 2 more days of such stories with a heavy heart and somewhere between Nagapattinam and Madurai I saw the earth burst into sunny yellow. More golden than the setting sun.

We stopped at the field for about five minutes (we had about 500 kms to cover before midnight) and then I was ready to go on and listen to people's story. That is all I could do for the moment anyway.

a thing of beauty is a

a joy forever

Travelogue

Mysore & Somanathpura

A trip down memory lane. It reminded of my school excursions, we did the exact same routine too Srirangapatna, KRS and Somanathapura leaving out only the palace and the zoo. The new additions being Mylari and Olive. Oh what joy one can find in smallest of things.

Somanthapura - the hoysala temple of Lord Vishnu

The KRS

Madurai

I sometimes wonder how the people there can be in such a jolly mood in such a bad weather. It makes me super cranky. The wonderful people and the horrible weather all intact- its always great to go back to people who are genuine and believe in what they do.

Ullal, Mangalore, Belthangady and Malebettu

My monsoon break :-) Totally unexpected but very lovely break. Loved every minute of it with a healthy dose of nostalgia thrown in. As I am growing older I am realising my need to find the roots that are otherwise lost in the concrete jungle and the catching up game.

Monsoon in Malebettu

Ullal beach

PS: I am glad I can upload pictures now! I've been struggling with my browser for long now!

Mysore.

I was in Mysore the whole of last week. Of course I had no time for sight seeing but saw enough to wish I lived there. First two days I went around the city, something kept coming up at the back of my head wasn't able to put my finger one it...then it struck me - there is not a single high rise building in that city!!! There is open sky everywhere. Not like the piece of sky I can see from my terrace but much wider and bluer. There are still so many trees that you can see the moon shining through them at night. In the evening when you are not blaring your TV off to kill boredom you can hear classical music coming from the Kalyana Mantapa nextdoor - live.

The mornings are clearer and the evenings are pleasant and there are lakes around which you can walk and see the most gorgeous painted storks busy building nests on the island. The city still has space for the not so young and hep ones. It still has the old world charm that made it the pensioner's paradise which made me regret I was not earning any pension soon enough.

But I also saw old buildings razed down and big names in construction advertising there. There are signs screaming that soon the sky will shrink and the storks will fly away. I do hope I am proved wrong or that it doesn't happen as soon as it seems.

Madras Musings - II

1) Marina Beach is a lot cleaner than I ever remember. Every morning a fleet of workers and a monstrous machine clears the beach of all that people leave behind.
2) I am still envious of people who own houses on that stretch of Besant Nagar.
3) There are a whole lot more restaurants now and not just with authentic Tamil food.
4) The hoardings in Chennai are getting bigger. They seem to cover every single site on Mount Road.
4) Chennai's probably the only city that takes innovations in saree seriously. I mean designers every where are looking at adding more bizarre designs to their list but someone in Chennai has actually come up with a saree with a pocket! It can hold your cellphone the hoarding shows. Way to go!
5) Chennai also has new malls now. Unfortunately didn't get to visit any but the good old Spencer's.
6) The city is no more "conservative" as all of us would like to believe. Fashion's certainly on scale with what you see in other cities (Or like hardcore chennaites like to say "it looks like Bangalore") and people spend generously (only relatively :-) too. But yes they are way behind when it comes to pubs. In that aspect Bangalore rules (!)
7) Tamil film names are getting weirder. I saw huge hoardings of "E" just that one alphabet. Upendra fan I suppose?

All these changes not withstanding I am glad to report that it is still warm (I don't mean temperature) and certainly safe for single women venturing out even at midnight. Something Bangalore was never and I am not hopeful, it ever will be.

Nevertheless I am glad to be back home, to the cold winters, television, my desktop, home cooked food and yes husband too:-)

Madras Musings

I am back in Chennai after three years on work. It is nice to see that Chennai hasn't changed drastically but I am very sure it is not far away either. Hoardings advertising private villas are all over the town, marking the real estate's presence quiet strongly. Tidel Park stretch is being spruced up at warfooting.

My work this time is hardly romantic. I am seeing the other side of Chennai which tourists experience in a small scale when moving around the city - the garbage piles. If you thought you've seen it all just because you've stuffed your nose with cotton while crossing Cooum or those innumerable slums you pass through, let me tell you that's not all. The outskirts of the city has garbage piled up for miles. They are at least two storeys tall and spread literally for miles. And there are people wading through it to get paltry salaries. It is so disgusting that it makes me very very sad.

I will write more when I am back. I will try and keep the garbage out of what I write because I've had enough of it. I am sure I will not forget this trip for a long time.

PS: sorry for the cliched title couldn't think anything creative...mind's numb after five days shooting garbage.

Necessary evil

Location S3 compartment of Tuticorin express: Vivek and me are on the upper berth. Train is just about to move. The people in the coupe below do not know each other. In about two minutes some one's mobile phone rings. One of the guys below answered. Vivek and me look at each other, smile and I say 5 minutes he says no 10 minutes. This is a game we have invented. There are no rules in this game just plain betting. The bet is on how long before two strangers stuck with each other in a train coupe start talking about mobile networks and cell phone models. That day I won. As soon the guy finished the call, the person opposite asked "what connection?" and thus the saga continued.

This is the latest national sport these days. Flaunting latest cell phone models and boasting about how good their network is over the others. "Hutch has no connectivity in Madurai" says one "now they have tied up with BPL so there is coverage” says the other. Ask them how many towers airtel has put up in their neighbourhood, pat comes the reply and quiet often right too. Ask them who lives in their neighbourhood they may not know (actually if they are tamilians chances are they will :-) The other favourite pastime is showing off the ringtones on their phones. It's not very uncommon to hear series of annoying cell phone tones on trains, at bus stands and in college campus or at weddings! And of course at concerts and meetings mobile phone owners are pain in the ***. Apparently the know it all gadget freaks slept through the talk on keeping the phones switched off or at least in silent mode when in such situations.

Sure these things irritate me that's why I am wasting my precious morning writing about it. What I find most disconcerting is when people expect you to have cell phones. Let alone my professional peers even the call taxi chaps as for it. The guy wouldn't book a taxi unless I give him a mobile number. A little irritated I gave him Vivek’s mobile number. Obviously I don't want some random taxi driver who actually knows my address, also to have my mobile number. Next morning when the taxi came I realised that there was no sinister reason to it. It was just a money saving technique the taxi guy had evolved. How you ask me? See he has a mobile phone and just as he reaches or if he can't find your house he gives a missed call to your mobile number. So when you see a missed call you call back and so he doesn't have to pay to find your stupid house or to tell you he has reached. Ingenious indeed! I wonder he is so sure that we cannot resist calling back a total strange number. Most of the time it turns out to be a wrong number!


A journalist friend of mine once told me that people look at him as if he was an idiot when he says he has no cell phone. He continued being an idiot for a while but buckled in and got himself the necessary evil.

I feel very uncomfortable about calling someone on their mobile unless they gave me the number or I know them well enough. I feel mobiles are too personal. Given a chance I will avoid it as much as possible. When a friend of mine discovered this trait of mine she called me old lady!

Train Journeys

I had never seen a train up close till I was twenty. Yes, I know it is shocking coming from someone who is born and brought up in Bangalore city. But it is true. I never had to take a train to go anywhere. We didn't have train to go to our "native" so we took bus. The rickety, back breaking journeys in the KSRTC buses are an experience worth an entire blog. Coming back to trains. I did not see it till I was twenty. Even then I didn't travel, I just got to see it up close and explore the wonder. I went to Bangalore City railway station to see off this friend of mine, Pradeep, who was going back home after finishing his college. I was there to see the train more than sending him off, I told as much to Pradeep. He was only amused and not at all hurt. He then entrusted Ekram, this other friend to make sure that I took a good look at the train. So it was under the expert guidance of Ekram that my first tour of Indian railways began. I was taken aback by the sheer size of the train - it was a Delhi bound train with lots and lots of compartments. Ekram was most thrilled to show it all off, as if he owned it or actually as if it was his invention. The pantry car and vestibule were highlighted and very rightly so. You can go from one end of the train to the other end without getting off - Truly marvelous. Hot and tasty food served while on the move certainly a fantastic luxury. Ekram, who knew very well about my motion sickness also grandly announced that it will never happen on a train.

I was hooked, I started thinking about people whom I could visit by train. At that moment there were none. When I told him of this problem, ever enterprising Ekram said "lets all go to Goa on a train. A picnic is due anyway and for you we will take a train." So the deal was made. It is another matter that the picnic never materialised.

That was a long time ago. But that story comes back to my mind every single time I take the train, to this day. I have traveled so much by train that I ought be given a special ID by the Indian Railways that'll fetch me a discount on ticketing. And on the account of my traveling, Vivek also had to do quiet a bit of it. So he too claims he deserves this ID.

You don't believe me? Let me give you some figures. I was in Chennai for two and half years. I visited Bangalore often. Which also meant that Vivek too traveled a lot to Chennai. (We believe in equality in our relationship you see). At the end of those two and a half years we did a rough calculation of how much we might have spent on traveling. (just to torment ourselves nothing else.)

We figured on an average of two trips a month for 2.5 years it would amount to about Rs. 45000/- This does not include the Shatabdi and AC travel we indulged in once in a while.

Is Mr. Laloo listening?

PS: I just realised that if I had saved at that rate I could've owned a four-wheeler and the money for the fuel by now.