Across the pale parabola of joy
The weekend arrived in its usual lazy self. Spent Saturday running around conducting exams at the univ, meeting up with a couple of old friends and getting my car checked on its usual Saturday morning date with the mechanic. Ended up in office checking mails looking at code and going out for lunch at McDs . Dinner was with my nephew and niece who left the choice of the place of culinary delight to me. In as much as food was a consideration, a close enough parking location was a bigger consideration and managed to find a nice watering hole at Mayurs on East Street. Saturday evening in Pune , hmmm traffic is worse and driving was made infinitely easier by driving around in my cousins palio rather than my smaller zen. The morning arrived and with it a nephew , niece and a pint sized dynamo from Hyderabad. I have always maintained that nieces are easier to deal with primarily because they don't ask too many intelligent questions and are satisfied with nice things like food. However 10 year old boys are a different story. This pint sized 10 year old was no exception. Apart from proceeding to tear apart every single adult in the family he went on to have some serious fun in life at the expense of every single adult.
Then one discovered the only way to silence him .Put him in the front seat of any car, turn on the AC and drive on the streets of Pune. The bumps and the rather jolly rollicking and the soft purr of the engine act as an amazing lullaby on this young feller and put him off to sleep. So the weekend spent on family duties and playing the genial uncle. !
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
Across the pale parabola of joy
Of Kashid, Pi and life in a hammock
It was a thursday when I got the call about going to the west coast on one of the virgin beaches dotting the Arabian Sea. The plan was to leave Pune early in the morning towards Kashid , a tiny hamlet of 820 people between Alibaug and Murud-Janjira on the west coast of Maharashtra.
The Geography.
Kashid is between Alibag a small town on the west coast of India / Maharashtra and Murud , whose claim to fame is the presence of a fort in the sea, Jal-Jazeera , built in 1140 A.D. a.k.a. Janjira in popular slang. Kashid has a lovely beach with palm trees and hammocks slung by the owners of small stalls that are the only signs of commercialization.
How to get there.
From Pune . Take the express highway to Mumbai, take the exit off Khandala and go towards Penn. From Penn take the road to Alibag and at the entry to Alibag take a left towards Rohas and Nagvas village . After a point you would cross a bridge (the landmark is Vikram Ispat) and then take a right turn towards Murud . Travel for approx. 30 km towards Revas village.The road winds through the Western Ghats parallel to the Arabian sea affording a large number of scenic spots. Finally after a climb you hurtle down a valley where the beach appears all of a sudden with a beautiful grove of palm and coconut trees with some stalls appearing on the right. This would be Kashid beach .
Boarding and Lodging.
One of the major revenues seems to be tourism and there are a number of small resorts dotting the main road to Murud, the road on which you reach Kashid. There are a couple of expensive beach resorts with costs upto 5k per couple or there are these small hotels / cottages including one in which we stayed during our trip. The beach resorts require booking in advance, in fact booking in advance might be a good idea. We were lucky in obtaining a cottage in one of the many resorts available. Sea food is apparently very good, with the non-veggies in our group going ga-ga about the idea of living on sea food, yours truly however being a pure "eggie" ended up with daal and rice and other vegetarian substitutes which by themselvers were very good.
Whats the big deal about the beach anyways ?
Quiet , peaceful and an amazing getaway from the hustle and bustle of civilization. Life without noise, junk food , television , mobile phones was brilliant ( though my sources tell me that a big cellular company is planning on destroying the peace by getting a mobile tower in place. ). Having been used to the dirt and grime with the Marina beach in Madras finding a beach where one could actually relax was phenomenal. The hammocks are strung in the middle of trees affording shade even during the hottest part of the day, combined with a cool sea breeze makes life extremely relaxing and enables one to laze away. I spent close to a day in a hammock reading a book, sleeping , eating and doing nothing much else. This in the middle of an extremely torrid Indian Summer.
The water is also amazing and extremely clean . The group of people that I went with spent most of their hours on the beach only in the water , whilst me being the lazy bum on the beach entered the water only a couple of hours before we left for Pune. Nice solid sleep left me spent on a Monday morning saying "death where is thy sting" and groaning about driving through crazy city traffic .
It was a thursday when I got the call about going to the west coast on one of the virgin beaches dotting the Arabian Sea. The plan was to leave Pune early in the morning towards Kashid , a tiny hamlet of 820 people between Alibaug and Murud-Janjira on the west coast of Maharashtra.
The Geography.
Kashid is between Alibag a small town on the west coast of India / Maharashtra and Murud , whose claim to fame is the presence of a fort in the sea, Jal-Jazeera , built in 1140 A.D. a.k.a. Janjira in popular slang. Kashid has a lovely beach with palm trees and hammocks slung by the owners of small stalls that are the only signs of commercialization.
How to get there.
From Pune . Take the express highway to Mumbai, take the exit off Khandala and go towards Penn. From Penn take the road to Alibag and at the entry to Alibag take a left towards Rohas and Nagvas village . After a point you would cross a bridge (the landmark is Vikram Ispat) and then take a right turn towards Murud . Travel for approx. 30 km towards Revas village.The road winds through the Western Ghats parallel to the Arabian sea affording a large number of scenic spots. Finally after a climb you hurtle down a valley where the beach appears all of a sudden with a beautiful grove of palm and coconut trees with some stalls appearing on the right. This would be Kashid beach .
Boarding and Lodging.
One of the major revenues seems to be tourism and there are a number of small resorts dotting the main road to Murud, the road on which you reach Kashid. There are a couple of expensive beach resorts with costs upto 5k per couple or there are these small hotels / cottages including one in which we stayed during our trip. The beach resorts require booking in advance, in fact booking in advance might be a good idea. We were lucky in obtaining a cottage in one of the many resorts available. Sea food is apparently very good, with the non-veggies in our group going ga-ga about the idea of living on sea food, yours truly however being a pure "eggie" ended up with daal and rice and other vegetarian substitutes which by themselvers were very good.
Whats the big deal about the beach anyways ?
Quiet , peaceful and an amazing getaway from the hustle and bustle of civilization. Life without noise, junk food , television , mobile phones was brilliant ( though my sources tell me that a big cellular company is planning on destroying the peace by getting a mobile tower in place. ). Having been used to the dirt and grime with the Marina beach in Madras finding a beach where one could actually relax was phenomenal. The hammocks are strung in the middle of trees affording shade even during the hottest part of the day, combined with a cool sea breeze makes life extremely relaxing and enables one to laze away. I spent close to a day in a hammock reading a book, sleeping , eating and doing nothing much else. This in the middle of an extremely torrid Indian Summer.
The water is also amazing and extremely clean . The group of people that I went with spent most of their hours on the beach only in the water , whilst me being the lazy bum on the beach entered the water only a couple of hours before we left for Pune. Nice solid sleep left me spent on a Monday morning saying "death where is thy sting" and groaning about driving through crazy city traffic .
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
The Mark Knopfler Concert.
Across the pale parabola of joy
Bombay the city which is always on its wheels and one city which yours truly detests to the extent possible forced its company upon me thanks to hosting the Mark Knopfler concert. The trip was worth it for just the concert. Went to the concert with my cousin K , his wife L and a friend M. The time taken to get to the end of the express way from Pune to Bombay was equal to the time we spent in getting to a place called Tikujenewadi in Thane (a suburb of the megapolis Bombay) . The drive to the concert took another good hour on the Pu.Dru.Mahamarg ( Purva Drut Mahamarg , the Eastern Expressway ) on which M gave a demo of his car driving skills which was equivalent to the consummate biker in Pune's maddening traffic. Thankfully we don't have too many Ms driving cars in Pune.
At the end of this reached the concert and for once there were speakers worth their salt with pretty good sound effects and for once, a concert started bang on time. No other bands playing , no one else playing before the great man , no other music to adulterate the magical sounds from his guitar which made your fingers ache for the exquisite music. Starting with the Walk of Life ,
singles from Philadelphia,Sultans of Swing, Tunnel of Love , Romeo and Juliet, he belted out some really amazing music which left one thinking about how such music could get out of the 4 strings on a guitar.
The concert ended in 2 hours but it left one clamouring for more such music. Drove back home in the wee hours of the morning and seriously considered driving down to Bangalore to attend the repeat concert. (Obviously didnt :-(( ).
He rocks !
Bombay the city which is always on its wheels and one city which yours truly detests to the extent possible forced its company upon me thanks to hosting the Mark Knopfler concert. The trip was worth it for just the concert. Went to the concert with my cousin K , his wife L and a friend M. The time taken to get to the end of the express way from Pune to Bombay was equal to the time we spent in getting to a place called Tikujenewadi in Thane (a suburb of the megapolis Bombay) . The drive to the concert took another good hour on the Pu.Dru.Mahamarg ( Purva Drut Mahamarg , the Eastern Expressway ) on which M gave a demo of his car driving skills which was equivalent to the consummate biker in Pune's maddening traffic. Thankfully we don't have too many Ms driving cars in Pune.
At the end of this reached the concert and for once there were speakers worth their salt with pretty good sound effects and for once, a concert started bang on time. No other bands playing , no one else playing before the great man , no other music to adulterate the magical sounds from his guitar which made your fingers ache for the exquisite music. Starting with the Walk of Life ,
singles from Philadelphia,Sultans of Swing, Tunnel of Love , Romeo and Juliet, he belted out some really amazing music which left one thinking about how such music could get out of the 4 strings on a guitar.
The concert ended in 2 hours but it left one clamouring for more such music. Drove back home in the wee hours of the morning and seriously considered driving down to Bangalore to attend the repeat concert. (Obviously didnt :-(( ).
He rocks !
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Across the pale parabola of joy
Across the pale parabola of joy
Back to where we belong. Well its been a while and have been busy with release cycles, driving my new car down to Lonavla and back and so on and so forth.
Also spend sometime in getting some cool research done in gdb. Nothing much else otherwise with work....Keeps one occupied and busy and bored too (well sometimes). On the other side sitting in office one gets to hear amazing statements like "Let me wear my specs and listen to you "
Back to where we belong. Well its been a while and have been busy with release cycles, driving my new car down to Lonavla and back and so on and so forth.
Also spend sometime in getting some cool research done in gdb. Nothing much else otherwise with work....Keeps one occupied and busy and bored too (well sometimes). On the other side sitting in office one gets to hear amazing statements like "Let me wear my specs and listen to you "
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Its been a while !
Its been a while since I wrote anything . Basically attributed to my own innate inborn inertia and laziness and the tendency to procrastrinate on things that should be done much faster. So a possible new year resolution could be : I shall blog atleast once a week but again considering my track record its going to be a tough ask on myself.
Anyways I blog this from the location from which the nickname "madrasi" originates, Madras the city of 3 summers , and currently in the winter of summers. Am here because of certain family reasons, and promptly fell ill with a nice flu. Receiving brickbats at my appearance (forgot the art of shaving for the past month) , countless arguments for a smaller waistline from one and all (the one thing that unites my considerably large family who disagree on everything else inclusive of the kanchi seers arrest ) and generally staying away from the computer for a while inspite of promising some research work to a couple of guys. !
Went and watched Swades at Satyam , an eminently likeable movie thankfully without the matkas and jhatkas of a typical bollywood movie. The only sad part about the whole experience was the presence of the innumerable silk saris ads and gold jewellery ads. It appears as though the whole of Madras is obsessed with silk saris and gold in general . T Nagar should be rechristened , Thyagaraya "Pattu Javuli" Nagar (Pattu = Silk in Tamil ). Things certainly have improved here except for the meters of the "humble" madras autorickshaw and the state of the water . ( it just gets redder and redder) ...:-) ...
Well enjoying the music season and the associated arrival of audio tracks in the music stores. Had fun in obtaining a few cassetes for the daily drive from home to office and back :-) .... Did some time pass in Landmark . A visit to Madras is never complete without a visit to the Landmark store in Spencers which puts everyone else to shame ! Looking at it am reminded of Charles Trumper's Barrow in "As the Crow Flies " by Jeffrey Archer , though the Barrow would have sold everything that Landmark did and tons more :-) ...
More on the travails and travels in Madras tomorrow as I go down south to Adyar and the associated locales.
Anyways I blog this from the location from which the nickname "madrasi" originates, Madras the city of 3 summers , and currently in the winter of summers. Am here because of certain family reasons, and promptly fell ill with a nice flu. Receiving brickbats at my appearance (forgot the art of shaving for the past month) , countless arguments for a smaller waistline from one and all (the one thing that unites my considerably large family who disagree on everything else inclusive of the kanchi seers arrest ) and generally staying away from the computer for a while inspite of promising some research work to a couple of guys. !
Went and watched Swades at Satyam , an eminently likeable movie thankfully without the matkas and jhatkas of a typical bollywood movie. The only sad part about the whole experience was the presence of the innumerable silk saris ads and gold jewellery ads. It appears as though the whole of Madras is obsessed with silk saris and gold in general . T Nagar should be rechristened , Thyagaraya "Pattu Javuli" Nagar (Pattu = Silk in Tamil ). Things certainly have improved here except for the meters of the "humble" madras autorickshaw and the state of the water . ( it just gets redder and redder) ...:-) ...
Well enjoying the music season and the associated arrival of audio tracks in the music stores. Had fun in obtaining a few cassetes for the daily drive from home to office and back :-) .... Did some time pass in Landmark . A visit to Madras is never complete without a visit to the Landmark store in Spencers which puts everyone else to shame ! Looking at it am reminded of Charles Trumper's Barrow in "As the Crow Flies " by Jeffrey Archer , though the Barrow would have sold everything that Landmark did and tons more :-) ...
More on the travails and travels in Madras tomorrow as I go down south to Adyar and the associated locales.
Monday, November 22, 2004
A weekend of reunions and some extremely crappy tamil movies.
Its been a rather interesting weekend to say the least. Considering the fact that Srikrish finally flew down to Pune I decided to be a nice guy and go pick him up at the airport and managed to do that in an Accent thanks to another of my friends going to pick up Beta. Thought that 4 years of the U.S. of A would have quietened "the man" but he was as effervescent and bubbly as ever with the result that I realized that it would have been better if I had not introduced him to the others for the general interest of humanity (read "humanity" as yours poorly truly ! ) .
After a general banter of jokes which included the usual crappy one about senseless and sensible humour which IMHO is in great demand and in short supply. I ended up spending the remainder of Friday ribbing Srikrish about his great fear of the Great Pune Traffic show on Karve Road in an autorickshaw whose driver considered himself a competitor to Juan Pablo Montoya in terms of the number of times we escaped near crashes, things that a hardened commuter in the contraption that they call a rick I have gotten used to . Needless to say that it left him in a flit of bother regarding the traffic sense or the lack of it. !
Later ended up having dinner at ShangriLa and watched Athu thanks to reviews by Krishna due to his brilliant surfing habits for crappy tamil movies. It was nice in patches, though definitely not watchable at 11 pm at night giving up precious sleep. Having made the 3 of us wake up inspite of our protests and watch the entire movie, Krishna promptly dozed off intermittently asking us for a summary of what had happened since the last time he dozed off. The same thing happened the next afternoon when we watched Giri on his recommendation where he claimed that Arjun would do a double act making me give up precious siesta time to watch a not too great movie .... This would earn him the sobriquet of the "crap" movie reviewer !
Well the only highlight was watching The Sound of Music and going to Khadakvasla with Srikrish and showing him the beauty of nature. Even though it was sunset we managed to get some phenomenal pictures which I should put up sometime.
After a general banter of jokes which included the usual crappy one about senseless and sensible humour which IMHO is in great demand and in short supply. I ended up spending the remainder of Friday ribbing Srikrish about his great fear of the Great Pune Traffic show on Karve Road in an autorickshaw whose driver considered himself a competitor to Juan Pablo Montoya in terms of the number of times we escaped near crashes, things that a hardened commuter in the contraption that they call a rick I have gotten used to . Needless to say that it left him in a flit of bother regarding the traffic sense or the lack of it. !
Later ended up having dinner at ShangriLa and watched Athu thanks to reviews by Krishna due to his brilliant surfing habits for crappy tamil movies. It was nice in patches, though definitely not watchable at 11 pm at night giving up precious sleep. Having made the 3 of us wake up inspite of our protests and watch the entire movie, Krishna promptly dozed off intermittently asking us for a summary of what had happened since the last time he dozed off. The same thing happened the next afternoon when we watched Giri on his recommendation where he claimed that Arjun would do a double act making me give up precious siesta time to watch a not too great movie .... This would earn him the sobriquet of the "crap" movie reviewer !
Well the only highlight was watching The Sound of Music and going to Khadakvasla with Srikrish and showing him the beauty of nature. Even though it was sunset we managed to get some phenomenal pictures which I should put up sometime.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Here we go.
Pillaiyar chuzhi or "Hello World" ! Well I said Hello World a couple of days back but heres the first serious post. Nothing very serious has been happening in life other than Srikrishna attempting to visit me and Ram tomorrow. Well for the uninitiated Srikrishna is one good friend of old whom I shall be meeting after 3 and a half years. Another South Indian though a guest of Uncle Sam Gora Saab is returning to say hi to us Software Recluses here ! So tomorrow is meeting up with him and spending some over due to time away from document writing and bothering about the tools and bugs !
The other good thing happening is listening to music out of the comp. punctuated by the odd cracker . Diwali the festival of lights and crackers was over ages ago though an attempt is made to punctuate Hariharan's voice in Raincoat with the odd cracker.
Now to explain the title "Across the pale parabola of joy " , its one magical line in a book by PG Wodehouse's biggest hero as far as I am concerned , the joy of life ! PSmith in "Leave it to Psmith" ... It epitomizes the fact that joy AFAIK exists only as a parabola paled by the darkening power of the document.... Now thats why I call my blog an "Indians" rant.
The other good thing happening is listening to music out of the comp. punctuated by the odd cracker . Diwali the festival of lights and crackers was over ages ago though an attempt is made to punctuate Hariharan's voice in Raincoat with the odd cracker.
Now to explain the title "Across the pale parabola of joy " , its one magical line in a book by PG Wodehouse's biggest hero as far as I am concerned , the joy of life ! PSmith in "Leave it to Psmith" ... It epitomizes the fact that joy AFAIK exists only as a parabola paled by the darkening power of the document.... Now thats why I call my blog an "Indians" rant.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Hello World
The world seems to exist and there seems to be a faint parabola of joy around it as is epitomized by leaving it to Psmith.
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