The Town Hall gig
Date: 6-Dec-2009
Venue: The Town Hall, Bangalore
Time: 1930 hrs
After a super hit Mysore Se Aayi from last year, the expectation for this year had nearly doubled. We lost Rithika, Sharath, Govind Raj and Namrata due to circumstances but got Keerthana who by-far, was the best dancer, more than compensated for it. It took around 15 *really* long days of practice and sweat to produce a dance which ended up being the main attraction of the evening. Needless to say it was Nritarutya’s Rohan Raj without whom this dance would not have been come out in the manner it has. An awesome choreographer and a gem of a person at heart, Rohan’s success story has been a long one which you can read it here. And so here is my second dance in Ananda Balaga in two years -
The Rohan Raj Team
L->R Standing: Bharath, Archana, /me, Kasturi Aunty, Rohan Raj, Keerthana, Renuka
L->R Sitting: Vidya, Medini, Ajay, Pradyumna and ‘Lakshmi’ is missing somewhere.
Yeah, comments please!
Advertisement: IIT Bombay, Techfest 2010
Techfest is the annual science and technology festival of IIT Bombay. It is the largest of its kind in Asia. In an endeavor to promote Science and Technology in India they had started an initiative named Nexus in 2006. Under this initiative they conduct events in different regions of the country. This year Nexus will be held at 5 centers in India.
Northern Region : NSIT Delhi
Southern Region : NIT Calicut
Eastern Region : NIT Rourkela
Western Region : IIT Bombay
Central Region : MITM Indore
The competition this year is based on wireless communication between robots. It is an extremely fascinating field with a number of applications. IIT Bombay’s Techfest will conduct this competition there and invite the top 3 teams to IIT Bombay to participate alongside winners from other centers in another competition named A.N.T.Z. The winners of A.N.T.Z will get to represent India in the Techfest World Challenge where in participants from our International Nexus centers would come. The international Nexus centers are at Australia, Thailand and Srilanka.
Wishing good luck to the Techfest team. For more information contact:
Hitesh Lalwani
Manager, Events
Techfest (2009-10)
IIT Bombay
+91 99679 30312
www.techfest.org
Download the Press Release here.
Travelogue: Sharavathi Valley Backwaters
There are some amazingly awesome places in Karnataka which need the right guidance and facilities to attract tourists. One step forward in achieving this is made by Mr. Sampath who is responsible for the revival of tourists flowing into the Sharavathi Valley Backwaters. All you need to do is inform Mr. Sampath a week in advance, the number of people in your group and rest is taken care by him.
About the place: Sharavathi Valley backwaters is formed as a result of Linganamakki Dam constructed across the river Sharavathi which later flows down the hill and results in Asia’s highest waterfalls, the Jog. Due to the sudden rise in water levels because of the construction of the dam, many low lying areas around the path of Sharavathi are submerged resulting in formations of a number of islands. The slow flowing water provides the perfect platform for swimming, boating, kayaking and other water sports. A small hill of moderate trekking difficulty gives the aerial view of the wonderful backwaters.
Getting there: At a distance of about 300km from Bangalore, Sharavathi valley is a minimum of 2 days trip. Take a bus to Sagara and then hire a local taxi guy who takes you GubbaGodu, 20km from Sagara. Make sure you reach GubbaGodu well within 8 30am in-order to make the rest of the day enjoyable. Since our bus reached Sagara by 6 30am, we decided to view the Jog and proceed towards GubbaGodu. Heavy rains played spoilsport at the Jog and much to our disappointment, none of the gates of the Dam were opened.
Things to carry: Here is a list of accessories you *must* carry in-order to help yourselves during your stay in Sharavathi Valley.
- A proper BackPack. (A bag which can be put on our back and other kinds of bags wont do).
- A plate with a spoon for eating food. (Must)
- One cup for drinking water, tea etc. (Must)
- One light & thin bed sheet, Foam sleeping Mat will be arranged by them.
- A small hand torche. (Must)
- A 1 ltr. water bottle.
- Well worn in sports/canvas shoes/sandals.
- Toilet kit (toothbrush, toothpaste, comb)
- Sun cap and Sun lotion.
Please carry only items mentioned here. Carrying extra stuff might just discomfort you.
Day 1: GubbaGodu – Mr. Sampath’s men were waiting for us with Hot steaming Idlis with Chatni and Khashaya. The experience of sipping hot Khashaya on the river banks is bliss. One thing needs a mention here. There are no basic facilities for freshening up in these islands. Be mentally and physically prepared to get yourself up and going amidst the woods. Atleast you can tolerate that to see nature’s heart. Boats were kept ready for us and we proceeded towards another island. Everything here is environment friendly and that means you should not expect motor boats. Rowing your way all through these islands is the only means. For the first half hour you would enjoy the rowing, but afterwards you need the villagers to take you through. I tell you rowing against the current is not an easy task. Half way through some of us dared to swim across the river and repented heavily for it. The distance what you see is actually way too much less than what it is, and we ended up swimming half the distance. By the time we reached the shore, there was nothing left in us. We could barely walk. Sampath’s men then setup tents for us and we took some time off to rest from travel fatigue and swimming disaster. In sometime Sampath’s men prepared lunch and for the rest of the noon we spent time admiring nature.
By 4pm we set out to another island which is said to have a wonderful sunset point. Again rowing ourselves through a rather calm Sharavathi we reached the place which is another treat to the eye. As the sun went down behind the hill we felt the much needed relief from city life. Took some amazing photographs and headed back to the camp island. To our surprise Mr. Sampath’s men had readied the campfire. Now you are in the an island lit by just the moonlight, pitch silence, campfire and surrounded 360 degrees by water admist a forest. This is pure awesomeness. Hospitality of the best of its kind when we served Hot tea and Mirchi(Chilli Bhajji) at the campfire site. Could not ask for more. Sung, danced and screamed like no one was hearing or seeing us and not to forget the heated argument on Rahul Dravid vs Adam Gilchrist. We were then served dinner and the tents were setup with mats for out sleep. Most of us just roamed around till midnight and just passed off.
Day 2: Awesome breakfast which included Ragi Dosa and Akki Rotti with hot Khashaya. We had boats ready for kayaking. Put on our life jackets and entered the water — fun unlimited. Half the day was already over when we were done with the water sports. Had awesome Pulav for lunch and left for the main Island near GubbaGodu. No sooner we reached there, we set off on another mission — trek the hill which gives a breathtaking aerial view of the backwaters with islands. With heavy backpacks we had to walk nearly 45 minutes nonstop to reach the base of the hill. After recollecting some energy we started the trek which takes not less than another 45 minutes to reach the top. I promise you every step is worth its weight in gold. The scene from the top is just not expressible. With some final photography with the lowest of batteries left after two full days of life with no electricity.
We literally ran our way down the hill to catch the last bus to Sagara and then headed back to Bangalore from there on. To say the least the effort of Mr. Sampath is just remarkable. The price he charges is very nominal. You actually feel that you really got more than what you actually paid for. Here are his contact details -
- Mr. Sampath Kumar
- prapancha@gmail.com
- facebook.com/prapanchas
- sharavathi.blogspot.com
For the complete photoset click here.
A hundred thousand page views
In just over 18 months of its existence this blog has received a hundred thousand page views. It really amazes me that a lakh people have found something interesting and visit back on a regular basis.
My sincere thanks to those who spend a lot of their valuable time on this blog commenting and discussing matters that would directly or indirectly influence other readers. While most people just take benefits and never return once their task is done or the information they need is found, submitting a thank you would not take much effort. On the other hand there have been readers who actively post comments which on a few ocassions have resulted in mild flame wars (which I enjoy). Keep them coming folks. There are also instances where I have not replied to some requests via comments/email as many a times the answer would be in the previous comments. Please spare some time to read them before asking. That said if a comment really needed a reply I would definitely not miss out on that. Special thanks to Akismet for blocking spam and making my life easier.
My journey with WordPress has been wonderful. Matt and his team are doing a wonderful job to provide new features that makes WordPress the world’s best blogging software. For example WordPress released a bunch of features under a week on which I recently twittered.
Finally, no matter who you are and why you are here I extend my sincere thanks to you for visiting this blog and inspiring me to write more. Do keep coming back as I have much more interesting stuff in store for you. Incase you feel I should write about a topic feel free to contact me. For the time being its time to celebrate the six figured stats. *Drumrolls*
