Briefly

 Last few weeks have been frenetic at work.  Achieved reasonably respectable results for FY 2008-09 in spite of the R word. This was followed by fine-tuning the budget for 2009-10 over the past 2 weeks. So, hardly got a chance to pursue my interests, viz. traveling, movies and eating out. 

The other thing that had my attention these days is the elections for AP Assembly and Indian parliament scheduled to begin on April 16. After trying to assess who is better among the already proven failures, I have given up and went back to my original choice – Loksatta. I have previously decided not to vote for Loksatta because it is very obvious that they will not win even a handful seats, let alone a majority. But then I had successfully shaken off this typically middle class syndrome of backing the winners, and decided to vote for Loksatta which is undisputedly in a league of its own. I am proud that Andhra Pradesh is home to such upright and ideological party which is trying to bring a paradigm shift in Indian politics and governance. In its short existence as a political party, it was previously an NGO, Loksatta has shown that it is capable of walking the talk. The internal processes of Loksatta w.r.t. election of office bearers and selection of candidates for MLA and MP seats were transparent and truly democratic.  Additionally, Loksatta has always been doing its bit to drive for improvement in political governance on various issues.

So, while I am not sure whether my vote will help the local Loksatta candidate win the seat, I am 1000% sure that each vote polled for Loksatta will motivate 5 more, hitherto skeptic, voters to vote for Loksatta in next round of elections. And when (not if) it happens I am sure Loksatta will be a strong political force with a power to change the governance of the state and center.

Wassup

 

Hello again! Been busy slogging to meet the business goals for the current fiscal. On top of it the budget preparations for the next fiscal year are in full swing. So, here is quick log of my life & times in last month and half.

 

v      Went to Warangal in February to visit my alma mater (REC-Warangal). I was there on the 2^nd day of “Spring Spree”, annual cultural festival of REC-Warangal. Drowned in sweet memories for some time before wifey rescued me. Stayed overnight, and visited 1000-pillar temple and Bhadrakali temple next day. Photos are at the bottom of this post.

v      Smoked a few times (I have quit smoking in June 2008) in the last couple of months. Was woken upto my senses by something I read on internet, and took a firm decision not to smoke again, even in jest.

v      Am keenly following the AP politics. Its amazing how politicians can be so shameless in justifying their decisions. I feel that the voters are much smarter than what they are credited for. I am sure of surprise results on May 16.

v      Pakistan seems to be on the verge of imploding and playing in to the hands of Taliban. Considering what Shaik Haseena is saying about the conspiracy behind the mutiny by Bangladesh rifles, India finds itself in unenviable position of being surrounded by rogue/failed/weak states. I would think Israel is in a much better position – at least the West condones whatever aggression it unleashes on its neighbours. Also, Israeli citizens are more dependable and responsible than Indians.

 

More later…

 

1000-pillars Temple

 

Some parts of temple are under restoration

 

 Near Bhadrakali Temple

 Near Bhadrakali Temple

Sankranthi vacation and a road trip thru coastal Andhra

 

The much awaited Sankranthi vacation has come and gone, and I am back in Hyderabad and back to the normal routine. As mentioned in my previous post, I was looking forward to this Sankranthi vacation because of the planned road trip to friends’ places in Prakasham and West Godavari districts. And, everything went according to the plan and I had a gala time.

Two of my close friends joined me for this road trip that began on Jan 11 morning. Our first stop was at Brahmana Nidamanuru near Ongole in Prakasham district where a colleague-and-friend of mine has arranged to host us for the day.

NH-5:  On the way to Nidamanuru from Guntur

The venue for lunch get together was a chavidi or koshtam (a rugged farm house) next to a tobacco barn. The floor was covered with taurpaulin sheets and a make shift gas stove was set up in a corner. So the food was truly oven fresh. The menu was chicken pakoda, pomphret fry, mutton curry, biryani rice and rasam. We reached the place with adequate supplies. A good number of the host’s cousins and friends too joined the party. By 4 PM everyone was reasonably stuffed with food and drinks, and a table was set up for playing cards. I don’t play cards, but this time I had my share of fun by watching these guys play till late into the evening.

The venue

Men at work

We then went to the host’s house and freshened up with a hot water bath. Afterwards we went out for dinner at a near by dhaba on NH-5. Next day morning I woke up early to enjoy the sights of rural Andhra. We resumed our road trip after a heavy breakfast of idlys and egg dosa (my first experience. Not bad). Our next destination is chinchinada in west godavari district. I visited this place on last Sankranthi too (please refer to my travelogue in the archives). But the big difference this time is the route I chose for reaching this place and the fact that I plan to spend slightly larger amount of time there this year. The route was Ongole-Chirala-Bapatla-Repalle-Avanigadda-Pamarru-Gudivada-Kaikaluru-Bhimavaram-Palakollu-Chinchinada. The key aspects of this route are the new bridge across river Krishna between Repalle-Avanigadda, and the drive through villages and towns that are far removed from the highway (NH-5) and the rail line connecting Chennai and Kolkata.

Breathtaking view from the bridge connecting Repalle-Avanigadda

The view on the other side

I expected to complete the drive in 4.5-5 Hrs but eventually did in 9.5 Hrs primarily because we some how missed the bypass road near chirala and were caught up in the slow traffic in Chirala town (cement roads are being laid almost every where, thus slowing down the traffic). So we reached Gudivada close to lunch time and we took an unplanned break. We waited for 30 minutes to be seated in an apparently-popular restaurant. We ordered veg meals that was surprisingly very good. So it is not for nothing that Gudivada counts among major cultural centers in coastal Andhra. We started after that heavy lunch and did not stop till we reached Chinchinada at 7 PM.

We passed by the entrance to famous kuchipudi dance academy

 

Chinchinada, at last..

colourful backyard

After yet another round of hot water bath, we settled in for a long night. The menu was chicken pakoda (for some reason our hosts on this trip seemed to prefer this as snack), country chicken curry, fish curry and sambar. Next day was Bhogi, so we dedicated the morning hours to visit some famous temples near by. First up is Kshiraramam (one of 5 pancharamams – shiva temples) in Palakollu. The next visit was to Someshwararamam (another pancharamam) in Bhimavaram. We have also visited famous Mavullamma temple in Bhimavaram. On the way back to Chinchinada we stopped near the outskirts of Bhimavaram to watch kodi pandelu (bettings on cock fights). These bettings run into hundreds of crores during these 3 days of Sankranthi near Bhimavaram region alone.

cock fight in progress

We then returned to Chinchinada for lunch. Our host picked up an exotic venue for pre-lunch drinks. It was a coconut grove overlooking lush green paddy fields. We added a bit of exotic to the drinks too – we replaced water and soda with coconut water.

paddy fields overlooking coconut grove

For once we were relieved that the lunch was pure vegetarian – mudda pappu (dal), avakaya (pickle), vankaya iguru (brinjal fry), egg keema, and pesara pappu charu (a variant of sambar). After a brief nap, we moved to larger house where card games are in full swing. Sankranthi season in Andhra is notorious for male folks losing more than their shirt in playing cards. I, as usual, slipped away to a small group busily discussing state politics. The dinner was mind blowing – crab curry, country chicken pulao and sambar. Next morning we woke up a little late, so we hit the road without taking breakfast. We drove non stop for 5 hours before reaching Guntur. We only stopped at Challapalli to pick up punukulu for a late breakfast.

The ride via NH-5 would have been faster by at least 30 minutes, but I wanted to explore the interior Krishna and Guntur districts one more time so we chose the same route for our return trip too, with one exception – we had mistakenly taken a different route from Bhimavaram to Gudivada (via juvvalapalem) that was actually much better (i.e. less traffic) than the route via kaikaluru. So the return route was Palakollu-Bhimavaram-Gudivada-Avanigadda-Repalle-Ponnur-Guntur.

Overall 3.5 days of great fun in the lap of rural Andhra that I love so much.

Holiday season

 

Firstly, Happy New Year, Happy Sankranthi/Pongal/Baisakhi, Happy holidays to every one.

 

I am yet to settle down into a steady blogging mode. So if any one is coming back frequently to see a new post from me, my apologies. I am assuming that there are at least a couple of visitors like that J, based on the fact that my blog now has registered more than 10,000 hits. Thank you dudes for that JJJ

 

My blogging was also affected by the work pressures accentuated by the recession in global markets. So, today I am leaving on a short vacation to my home town. I will spend the next 3 days in doing a road trip across south coastal Andhra. Watch out for a travelogue and pictures on that trip soon.

 

As mentioned in my last post, I toured USA in Nov-08 for a short business trip. Though it was a really short trip of just 14 days, I visited 9 cities in USA – New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Miami and Pittsburg. Sadly I could not do much sight seeing in any of these places because it was all business in the day and quiet dinners in the nights, and packing & unpacking suitcases every day. Of course, I have visited some of these cities in my previous trips to USA – New York, Atlanta and Chicago.

“Gateway Arch” in St. Loius

 

More of St. Louis

 

CNN center @ Atlanta

 

Outside the CNN Center

 

Images from the tradeshow I attended

 

Images from the tradeshow I attended

 

I always enjoyed touring in USA for its friendly people, the sights, and the food (global cuisine, and the steaks). From whatever little first hand experience I had in European countries, USA is a much better tourist-friendly place. But, from the 2^nd day itself I would start missing the hustle and bustle, smells, heat and dust of India. There is nothing like India.

Vacation in Dandeli and Goa

 

As mentioned in my previous post, I was very busy in the last couple of months with traveling. In October I took a short vacation to Dandeli and Goa with my family. In November I was on a 3-week business trip to USA.

 

Firstly about my vacation in Dandeli and Goa. Dandeli is in North Karnataka, about 130 KM from Goa. Our plan was to travel to Dandeli by train (it’s just a little more than overnight journey from Hyderabad), spend a couple of days there and then travel to Goa by road, and finally return to Hyderabad by flight.

 

We started from Kacheguda station for Dandeli. This was first long distance train journey I took with my wife and kid after a long time, so I enjoyed it thoroughly. We alighted at Londa Jn, from where “Hornbill resort” people received us for a 40 KM drive. On the first day we stayed in a picturesque and exotic tree-top cottage and the next day we moved to a rockhouse cottage, as we originally planned. I was glad that I made that arrangement. Though the idea of a tree-top cottage overlooking the river Kali was very romantic, I could not sleep peacefully thru the night because the windows do not have shutters (they just have curtains) and you can feel and hear small creatures/insects crawling under the cabin floor. Spent the next morning looking at the Mist-laden river Kali in full flow. Dandeli’s USP is river rafting. The rapids in river Kali are not very dangerous and that makes Dandeli ideal location for clubbing river rafting with a 2-day stay with mother nature. I saw a lot of young tourists preferring to stay in tent houses in the resort. Except for river rafting we tried every thing else  on offer – trekking in the forest, paddle boating, natural Jacuzzi (i.e. squatting in the way of rapids amongst the rocks) and fishing. The food served in buffet style in the resort was good. The down side of the resort was that there is no TV and no group activities were organized by the resort people. It can get boring after you are done with your trekking, fishing, lazing in the sun, etc. The Ilayaraja songs loaded into my mobile phone helped me kill some time though. Overall, I would strongly recommend a trip to Dandeli if you love nature.

 

  

 

The resort people arranged a cab to drive us to Goa from Dandeli, for a fee of Rs. 2500, phew.. We booked in to a 2* property near Baga beach. The hotel has a small swimming pool that I and my 5-year old son used every morning and evening J

 

This was my first trip to Goa, and I was not exactly impressed. In spite of reading a lot of reviews – I felt – I could have prepared better in choosing the right location among numerous beaches in Goa, and in choosing the company J And, I should have planned for a longer stay than 2 days.

 

Baga beach is one of the dirtier beaches I have ever seen. Sadly I assumed that Calangute beach next door would be equally bad, and hence did not visit that. We killed time in the hotel or in restaurants for most of those 2 days. I liked the easy-going crowd and the restaurants – Baga beach thankfully has a lot of good restaurants. I had also planned to experience the famous discos in the neighborhood, but the action always starts after 10.30 PM and my son fell asleep before 10 PM on both days. We did, however, enjoy the scooter rides thru paddy fields to the nearby markets.

 

Goa, I shall be back soon with my friends and for at least 3-day vacation.