Kalimpong and Baiguney Dec 2021! - Day 1

And as we continue living through another year with the dreaded virus not going anywhere, the four of us decided to go ahead with our yearly trip, ready to brave come what may! 

After a lot of deliberation, cancelling our pre-bookings to Binsar, finally deciding to go ahead with Kalimpong and Baiguney, we booked the air tickets to Bagdogra, the closest airport. This sealed our decision to travel!

Not knowing the exact whereabouts of either of these places, we had a vague idea that they were located North East of India. (Psst... we had mainly booked the rooms here as we wanted to visit North East, and Club Mahindra had their resorts and tie-ups in these places in the North East!)

We browsed through various online reviews to understand where exactly we were going. Intrigued by the fact that both the places were actually in two different states, separated by a river flowing the length of both these places, we managed to get a good idea of what all was recommended to be explored. 

Temperatures promised to be freezing, so we ensured we were well stocked up with winter clothing (or so we thought)

An early morning 2:45am travel to the airport for a 6:00 am flight, into which we were all loaded much before time, only to wait in the flight, all belted up, for the next hour plus!! The visibility was close to zero, and the pilot could move no where, until the fog cleared. Sleep getting the better of all of us, nodding away, waking up intermittently to check if the flight had taken off, which it finally did at 7:40, we slept through most of the journey. 

Bagdogra being a small airport, after collecting our baggage, we quickly found our pre-booked cab with a friendly driver, to take us to our destination for the next few days - Kalimpong. We did a stop at Laddoo Gopal - the only vegetarian restaurant in this stretch - of close to 4 hours travel before we reached Kalimpong. 

After an enticing, heavy brunch of masala dosas, roti bhajis, parathas, chole bature and chats ( He had good Jain options too!), we were a tad disappointed though that tea / coffee available was only the machine ones. I did have a cup of tea to try and stop that dreaded headache that was setting in!! Resuming our journey, after some breathtaking views along the way, which we could not resist capturing on camera, we reached our hotel (tired and just ready to rest it out for the next hour or so. ) The entire journey (well, almost) was along the river Teesta! 

The staff at the hotel told us that we had the room with the best view. She said we will be able to spot the K2 mountain tomorrow. What? Come again? K2? You mean Kanchenjunga? Oh well... We did not really believe her at that point, and did even try for a room on the floor above ours so that what ever mountains were visible, they would at least be without the intrusion of the house right in front of our balcony, in vain though!

After a quick rest, we stepped out for a trek (as the children would like to call it). More like a walk to get familiarised with the area. On our return, we waited for the hotel to be open for dinner. We went in to catch an early dinner of Thukpa (a local favourite), American Chopsuey, and Dal chawal with Bhajjis. Satiated, we hit the sack early, so that we could wake up early and try to catch a glimpse of K2, if that was really true! Ofcourse not before arranging for our tour cab to take us around Kalimpong the next morning. Wait till you hear about our exciting morning tomorrow! 

Paruppu Podi

Another one of my favourites is Paruppu Podi. I enjoy paruppu podi with hot rice and ghee, and my mom, mother in law and my chitti ensured that I always had a bottle of their hand made paruppu podi with me, so that I could use it for any quick fix meal, or sometimes even instead of the cooked tur dal in the rasam!

With lockdown firmly in place, and even if removed, the "No travel" restrictions that we have put upon ourselves has emptied all those stocked up bottles, and so there, just like everything else under the sun, I decided to try my hand at making this by myself too!!!

This time I followed a recipe by the channel - Agrahara Recipes. And I ended up with some super tasty paruppu podi, easy to make as well.

So here goes - a record for quick access -

Ingredients - 

1/3 cup urad dal

1/3 cup moong dal

1/3 cup tur dal

5 red chillies (Or as per your spice requirements)

1 tsp asafoetida

A few curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tsp gingelly oil

Salt to taste

Method of preparation -

Dry roast the urad dal, till it turns golden brown, keep aside. Do the same with tur dal, and then with moong dal. Make sure the colour changes and an aroma wafts for all the three dals.

Dry roast the red chillies. 

Once the dals cool down, grind them to a coarse powder. (or if you like fine powder, do a few more rounds of the mixer, and then sieve the ground powder)

Take a kadhai, heat up 2 tsps of gingelly oil, and add mustard seeds. Once they crackle, add torn curry leaves and finally add asafoetida and turn of the flame. 

Pour this tempering onto the powder, mix well. Add salt as per your taste. Mix well. Cool. Store in an air tight container.

Add this powder to steaming hot rice and have it with a dollop of ghee!!

Kadalaparuppu Payasam

It's August, and the start of festival season. One of our first function is the annual "Avani Avittam" where the men change their sacred thread. I was tickled to hear my chitti call it the "Annual renewal of license".

The day after the men change their poonal, they need to chant the Gayatri Mantra.

Each of these days is dotted with traditional specialities offered for neivedyam. The specialities differ in different households. In our family, on the first day we prepare urad dal vadai and nei appam. The day of the Gayatri mantra chanting is characterised by a payasam.

I decided to make Kadalaparuppu payasam this time. I have tried out Semiya payasam and pal payasam many times before. However, I have never ventured into making the dal and jaggery payasam ever before. For festivals and religious functions, the dal - jaggery payasam is the one that is supposed to be offered to the Lord.

Whenever my mother made kadalaparuppu payasam, I absolutely loved it. So I quickly buzzed her for the recipe, and here it is. (Wanted to share it right when it's fresh in my mind! Just made it this morning!)


Ingredients -
Chana dal - 1/2 cup
Jaggery (broken into pieces) - 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder - A pinch
Coconut milk - 1 cup (or even more based on your taste)
A few cashews roasted in ghee.

How to make -

Roast the chana dal in a dry pan, till it gives an aroma. Don't wait till it changes colour. Once done, wash the chana dal. Pressure cook it with 2 cups of water for 3 whistles. It needs to cook very well. Once pressure releases, you need to mash it well.

In a separate pan, take the powdered jaggery, add one cup of water and let it melt. Bring it to a boil. Add the mashed chana dal into this jaggery water. Let the mixture boil till it starts to thicken to payasam consistency.

Grind coconut with water to extract one cup of coconut milk. (To extract the coconut milk - You can transfer the ground coconut onto a muslin cloth and squeeze out the coconut milk from the cloth)

Add this coconut milk to the jaggery and chana dal mixture and immediately turn of flame.

Add cardamom powder, and the cashews roasted in ghee - and your payasam is ready to be served!

It tastes divine! :)

Temple Style Sambar

During this "2020 Lockdown", everyone at home has ended up becoming a chef, and started to explore various cuisines, various styles of cooking and so on.

One request came from the husband to make "Temple Style Sambar". The request came along with a youtube video link as well to make things simpler for me :)

We tried this sambar recipe from "Namma Adige" - A Kannada Cooking Channel, and it was simply delicious, exactly like the Sambars served in Temples of Karnataka.

I wanted to make a note of the recipe just in case I miss it next time I want to make it, so here goes -

Ingredients -

1 tbsp Dhania seeds
1/2 tbsp jeera
5 regular red chillis (guntur) and 3 byadige chillis
Few curry leaves
One tsp fried gram dal
2 tbsp Grated coconut
Boiled tur dal - 3 tbsp
One lemon ball sized tamarind soaked in hot water and juice extracted
1 tsp Oil for roasting
Salt to taste
Vegetables of your choice (I have used Tomatoes, yellow pumpkin, potatoes in this recipe)
Mustard seeds and hing for seasoning
A small ball of jaggery.

How to make -

Boil the tur dal with a bit of turmeric and keep aside.

Roast the Dhania seeds and cumin seeds in one tsp of oil. Once you notice the colour change, add the red chillis and curry leaves. Transfer to a mixer. Once the mixture cools, add the fried gram dal, and coconut and make a nice paste with a little bit of water.

In a pan, add a bit of oil and toss in the tomatoes. Roast well, and then add the other vegetables. Once the vegetables are cooked, add in the imli water. Let it boil for a while for the smell of the imli to reduce. Then add the cooked tur dal and the ground paste. Add water to make the consistence a little watery. Temple style sambar is generally much more watery than the regular sambar.

Add a small round ball of jaggery, and also add salt to taste.

Once it boils well, turn off, and enjoy with idlis or even hot rice with a dollop of ghee.

Note: These byadige chillis are added to enhance the color of the sambar. Their property is to give colour to the dish mainly, and spice levels of this type of chilli is very less.

Coming up next - Vangi bath powder (Which is also used as Yennegai powder) :) :) 

Shivgange trek - Refresher - with Kothi Cheshte!

A small group of the five of us (3 adults and two children), left our homes at HSR at around 4:30 am on a Saturday morning. We took the Hebbal - Mekhri Circle - Yeshwantpur route and joined the Tumkur highway. Being early, we had hopes of beating the traffic and enjoying a nice drive in the Hyundai Creta. However, our dear friends, the truck drivers, ensured that our speedometer could not cross 60 kmph. So, much to our frustration, we trundled through the beautiful highway, and finally took a left at Dobbaspet, and took the winding road-way which led to our destination. After a narrow escape (a crazy driver dashing down the single lane narrow road took us totally by surprise and a sharp swerve ensured we escaped a major crash!), a shaken lot of us reached the foothills of Shivgange at around 6:30 am.

The breathtaking view of the mountain peak from a slight distance made for the best picture of this trip. With the clouds covering half of the peak, it looked like we were getting ready for our walk in the clouds. The kids could not wait to go touch the cottony clouds. So after parking at a newly constructed car park, and a quick breakfast of idlis later, we started our climb at 7:00 am.

The temple at the foot of the hills was not yet open. We took a left turn to get on the trail to reach the peak. The trail started with steps cut out in the rocks. As Shivgange was known for its notorious monkeys, we took minimum snacks (a packet of biscuits, some cut fruits, and some chikkis, and some tetra pak juices) and we split it across all our backpacks. We took around 4 bottles of water between the five of us.

In high spirits, we worked on the trek, the children their happy and fast selves. We adults were more so in our own world, feeling our legs and knees do the climb and wondering how they would withstand (or come out with bright colours :) ), this test. We did have a companion in a huge monkey which give me a fright as I turned slightly to find it just at my elbow, climbing up hanging on the railing. I almost choked, holding back a squeal, and before I could get my courage back to warn my SIL, she saw it too, and thankfully, the two of us acted nonchalant and let it pass by. We were lucky as it did not suspect anything in our bags and continued its journey.

With not much of an event to speak of, we reached what I like to call the half-way mark of the Shiva Parvati statue, after completing the easier part of the trek. This was around 8: 10 am. On the way, we passed the Olekal Teertha, and Basavanna atop a steep rock. Being still early hours, none of the little shops on the pathway were still open.

After this came the steepest part of the trail. The children went ahead with swift steps under the watchful eye of their uncle. The remaining two of us took it slow, taking in the wonderful sceneries below us, feeling and watching the clouds passing by us, breathing in the fresh morning air, feeling the strong gusts of fresh winds, holding on for dear life to the railings, lest we get carried away with the winds ... phew ... this seemed like heaven.


This dreamy phase of our lives, though, was extremely short lived. As we turned a corner, we saw a gang of 10 monkeys. I warned my SIL this time, and both of us decided to just walk by without giving them as much as a look,  thus not attracting their attention. However, as soon as I reached a feet away from them, one of the huger monkeys jumped in front of me and growled. I yelled out and tried to shoo it away, but it persisted glaring and growling at me. Meanwhile, another one swiftly moved behind me and started tugging at my bag. Before I could react, pull out my bag and throw it at them, another one, sat on the railings and pulled at my hair! Yikes! I yelled and shooed them and quickly pulled off my bag and threw it at them. My SIL was a few steps behind watching all of this and giving me some pep instructions.


These, now infamous, creatures, then took the bag and laid it atop a rock in a puddle of water (Oh no!) and tried to loosen the draw string. My SIL quickly joined me and both of stood there, watching the Monkey movie. Very importantly, my wallet, with my cards and license and some 2000 odd bucks, were sitting in a little pocket in that back-pack! Aaaargh ... we watched, with nothing other than that to do, hoping the creatures would quickly go away leaving the bag safe for us to take our wallet back and run!

Oh - but was that to be? Out came the chikki packets, slashed at - and the yummy chikkis were devoured within no time by stronger of the lot. The weaker set jumped all around waiting and growling for their turn. Then - search search - yes there was more - a packet of good day biscuits .... they were thrown at the weaker set for them to munch on. What else??? Cap - Flick away, Hat? flick away ... Water bottles - ummmm ugggghhhh - cannot be opened - flick away - towels? what the hell - flick away .... And here we are holding our breath as each item came out and was flung away - hoping against hope that they do not find the wallet and throw it away - down hill into thin air!!! Exactly at this moment, I chose to remember the story narrated by my friend about how his wallet was snatched away by a monkey and thrown out into thin air, at the exact same Shivgange peak, and he mentioned that he never was able to locate it ever!!!!! Oh my!


After a long movie of 20 minutes (which seemed like eternity!) the monkeys satisfied that there was nothing more in it, slowly moved away to the next terrain. Okay go on quickly guys .... oh no! The last one was just leaving, but the smart fellow, decided to be extra smart, and before jumping off the rock, flicked the bag away! Standing where we were, we had no clue what was on the other side of the rock, was it another rock, or was it a deep drop down, or were there bushes beyond! We quickly made our way down and tried checking and found that thankfully, there were bushes beyond the rock, But there still seemed to be no clue of the bag. Finally, my SIL climbed atop the rock and spotted it in the bushes below. I went hunting for a stick to pull it out of the bushes, when, just at that moment, the near by stall keeper came up the trail and happily obliged us by pulling out the bag. Phew!!! Drenched in water and dirt - I pulled out my wallet quickly and told him to keep the rest of the stuff in his safe-keep till we returned from our trek.

Finally, totally fed-up and tired of this experience, we continued our trek uphill, the pathway becoming tougher as we moved up. Finally we reached the magnificent Nandi atop huge rock jutting out of the mountain. A couple of turns later, we reached the mountain top, and were relieved to have gotten there. This was exactly at 9:00 am.

We were amidst the clouds flowing by, and the entire feeling of having reached the top left us exhilarated. The view all around was fresh, green, and out of the world. Though we just did not feel like starting the descent, the hunger pangs of the younger fellows pushed us to get back up on our feet about half an hour later, and we started our way down the peak.

The tired legs this time wanted more rest, so though the gravity pulled us down faster, we took more stops and got down at a slow pace and finally reached the car park at 11:40 am. And - before I forget - another excitement to end the eventful trip - we spotted a snake climbing up the stairs to reach the temple!!! The snake was a thin and small one with a face as small as half of our thumb. It was completely black, with a white stripe running right across it's side.

All the hard work was making all our tummies rumble - so we rushed to the closest Kamat upachar, had some good meals, pooris et al. We then headed back to Bangalore (at  around 1pm) and reached HSR layout at around 3:30pm.

Tired legs but happy minds - fitful sleep at the end of the day! A must do trek - Shivgange - also given some beautiful History attached to it. Look up the stories of Danseuse Queen Shantala and Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana - I was taken aback to find out after my trek that this was the peak from where Shantala was believed to have jumped off and ended her life, as she could bear no heirs to the throne to succeed King Vishnuvardhana! The story of Shantala is my next interest and I am waiting to get hold of a book to quench my interest!

The last week of December 2016 - Day 1 and 2 - Ahmedabad.

Hello there! It's been two years since I wrote here, and it definitely feels good to be back with a bang! What an eventful week it was - the last week of December 2016. It's been a week plus since we returned, and I decided I definitely need to do a little travelogue to record this trip such that it remains etched in our memories.

A gang of 21 of us from Bangalore, comprising of 10 kids and 11 adults, decided to do a trip to Gujarat, covering a tiny bit of Ahmedabad, moving to Veraval to cover Somnath, Diu, then Porbandar and finally Dwarka. The age of the kids ranged from one and a half years to 9 year olds!

24th Morning, we took a flight to Ahmedabad from Bangalore. Ahmedabad welcomed us with a map of Gujarat and it was a beautiful one, giving us a clear picture of what was in store for us around Gujarat.

By the time all of us convened at the Ahmedabad airport (we travelled in two different flights as we didn't get tickets in the same one), it was 12:30 pm. Deepak had arranged an awesome 20 seater mini bus to take us to our hotel. We decided to stop on the way for lunch as we were famished. And what better way to start our trip than with a super awesome Gujarati thaali at "Toran"! Here's what it looked like - and we couldn't wait to dig in! It was heavenly.

After a "Meetha Paan" to end the delicious meal, we checked in to our rooms at Lord's Inn. An hour of freshening up, and we got set to visit Akshardham.

At Akshardham, one is not allowed to carry cell phones, leather wallets or bags stuffed with one's belongings into the temple premises. We either need to leave it in our buses/cars or drop it off at the entrance where they give you a token to collect it at the end of your trip. The temple premises are beautiful with long walk ways and gardens all around and lots of places to sit and relax. The inside of the temple was massive and had the history of all prior Gurus written all around, with plenty of place to sit around for a moment of peace.

The highlight however, was the Vadilal ice creams that Deepak uncle treated all of us to! And then the wonderful laser show depicting the story of Nachiketa and Yamaraj. It was a wonderful combination of mythology with the current technology, and was mind-blowing. All of this left us famished and the temple campus itself had a good canteen with some super awesome khichadi dahi, and other interesting items. Dinner done, we headed back to our rooms and hit the sack.

Next morning, relaxed breakfast after, we checked out from our hotel and proceeded towards Adalaj Ki Vaav. This was around an hour's journey from the Lord's Inn. Adalaj Ki Vaav is a stepwell which is five stories deep. This was built in 1499, when such step-wells were used for storing water in the arid regions of Gujarat. The temperature at the bottom is told to be 5 degrees lower than the outside temperature. Beautiful intricate carvings adorn the walls leading to the bottom. You could read more about the history of Adalaj Ki Vaav here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalaj_Stepwell

At Adalaj Ki Vaav, there was a huge garden with a lot of open space and green grass for children (and the forever young adults) of the group. We (yes, adults and kids) spent a good hour and a half playing polo, running catching, hide and seek and whatever not. Woh bachpan ke din yaad aa gaye!

We still had some time for lunch, so we headed to the famous Sabarmati Ashram. This was a beautifully maintained place, with a lot of information, pictures and details about Gandhi Ji. We sat around a little, allowing the information to seep in and letting the kids get their share of fun in the pebble pool as I liked to call it.

It was definitely time for lunch now. We headed to Neelkanth's Patang - another famous restaurant at Ashram road in Ahmedabad. This restaurant is located on a tower which is 221 ft above the ground. It is also a revolving restaurant and gives a 360 degree view of the city right from where you are seated! What an out of the box experience. To top it all the view includes the Sabarmati river front! The buffet was a huge spread as well and as we had to spend the entire day till we get onto the train at 11 pm, it was a totally "RELAXED" affair!

After the lunch, we went to a famous park where we thought there might be trees and some shade to sit around. But it was not to be! The hot sun followed us where ever we went. There were lot of play things for kids though, and they had their share of fun in a chota bheem "tora tora" and a lot of other games. After this, we did some shopping in the National Handloom house (I got an experience of how crowded a store can actually get), and then hit the food street at Ahmedabad. Superb arrangement of street foodie joints complete with tables and chairs outside each joint. The food and the different kind of ambience was just unbelievable. The lassi that we ended our meal with was heavenly.

Now to the railway station to board our train to Veraval. With the help of porters, trolleys and transporting luggage across tracks, we were excited to finally reach the platform. We looked at other people like us with bedspreads on the platforms and comfortably settled for the night. We chatted around and wondered at how they could just sit there on the platforms! After a few minutes, we were told the "delightful" news of our train being behind schedule by an hour and a half. What!???? Ofcourse not... Ofcourse yes!!! Oh well, let's just settle on the platforms. And now it was our turn. Forget the bed spreads. We just sat right there on the bare platform floors and arranged suitcases together for our kids to sleep on them and huddled and waited for the train to arrive. So much for commenting on the other folks!

When finally the train arrived, we had some really "COLD" issues to handle. 2nd class compartments, with each of our seats spread across from s3 to s11 (yes!), and all of it being Side upper berths, and none of the shutters closing properly for the nights, and all of us running really low on winter clothing and bed spreads and last but not the least - kids ranging from one and a half to 10 years - you can definitely imagine what an eventful the train journey to Veraval might have been!! :)

Learning - Load yourself with winter wear and blankets when you travel by train. Definitely carry a pair socks, and something to cover your ears as well!

I will stop here for now (December 25th night) and continue the next few days' account in my next article. 

Trip to Chitradurga

A weekend trip to Chitradurga turned out to be so refreshing, the highlight being exploring Chandravalli Caves, which has not gained much popularity due to the historical importance of the Chitradurga Fort.

Here's a link from The Alternative, an e-magazine which published my article on the same:
Chitradurga Fort and Chandravalli Caves

Vishaka Hari on Women's day 2014

In a unique attempt to bring our Indian culture to the attention of today's youngsters and elderly alike, Scion Master minds organized an event featuring Smt. Vishaka Hari on the occasion of Women's day. Smt Vishaka Hari, a disciple of Shri Lalgudi Jayaram, is a Harikatha specialist. She has a number of works behind her, some being - Sabari Moksham, Sundara Kandam, Rama Pattabhishekam, and many more.

Smt Vishaka Hari presented a discourse combined with appropriate musical renditions for each of them. The topic chosen was "Women of Wisdom", where in the characters of women from our vedic era - Sharada Devi, Gargi, Sita, Chintamani and Kanhopatra - were elaborated on. The present generation has a misconception that the women from earlier generations were only good at cooking and keeping the home. It is thought that they stayed indoors and were weak at heart and cried at the drop of a pin. However, by elaborating on important events of life of the characters above, and also some more, Smt Vishaka Hari erased this misconception.

She started with the eye-opening fact that in the Vedic era, during Ramayana, Mahabharatha and Bhagavatham, women were respected a great deal. They were treated as equals to men, and man and woman were infact complementary to each other. It was understood that without one, the other would cease to exist.

The story of Sharada Devi is an inspirational one of how man and woman are complementary. Sharada Devi, even after hearing from everyone that her husband was a good for nothing, and was mentally unstable, she decided to join him, though her parents repeatedly told her that he would be of no use to her. Her belief was "I am not expecting him to be of use to me, I am going there as, if he is mentally unstable, as a wife, it is my duty to be of use to him, to support him and nurse him back to health". When she went there with this belief, she found Ramakrishna to be a very caring person. He treated Sarada Devi as an incarnation of Divine mother, and worshipped her as Sree Maa. Theirs was an example of a marriage that was a spiritual union. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarada_Devi)

Thus, just as today's woman expects man to respect her, she must not forget that the vis a vis also holds true and necessary.

Gargi was the first women philosopher of the Vedic times. She was invited to the world's first conference on philosophy convened by King Janaka of Videha. She challenged Yagnavalkya to a debate and acknowledged defeat and praised Yagnavalkya for his presentation.

Gargi was thus known for being a very knowledgeable woman.

To highlight Sita, Smt Vishaka Hari picked the delicate interaction between Sita and Rama, after Rama was told that there would be no crowning ceremony, and that he had to leave to the forest immediately and for fourteen years. She brought out this conversation with a beautiful rendition of a sanskrit song.

Sita is known for her immovable patience, courageous nature and dedication to lord Rama. The patience with which she bore the decision of Rama sending her away to the forest, when she was carrying her twin children, the dedication to Rama with which she decided to follow her dharma and accompany Rama to the forest for 14 years, the courage with which she spurned Ravana's advances, were a few of her characteristics that we can definitely learn from.

The next story was of Kanhopatra - a little known marathi poet. She was the daughter of a courtesan, and lived near Pandharpur. Though she had a rich childhood, as she was the child of a courtesan, she was treated as a socially low status woman. As she grew up, she refused to follow the lifestyle of her mother. She became devoted to Vithoba and fled to Pandharpur, when she heard that Vithoba was kind, generous and would accept her as she was. She dedicated her life to the Lord, and she asked a boon of the Lord that she be able to serve the people even after her death. The Lord then merged her soul with that of a tree near the temple, and she thus got her boon as she provided shade to the number of devotees who visited the temple.

The last story was of Bilvamangala and Chintamani. Chintamani, who happened to be the daughter of a prostitute, was a great Krishna devotee. She had a pet parrot to whom she taught names of Narayana and made the parrot repeat the same in its sweet voice. Bilvamangala was besotted by Chintamani and her devotion, and he kept coming to visit her. One night, when it rained heavily and the rivers were flooded, he refused to be held back, and swam through the overflowing waters and reached Chintamani, all exhausted. She watched him and told that his devotion to her amazed her, and treating him as her inspiration, she jumped into the same flooded waters and swam all the way to Brindavan to devote her life to the lord. This act of hers transformed Bilvamangala, and he followed her footsteps and dedicated his life to meditation and the lord.

Through this presentation, Smt Vishaka Hari also shared some interesting tidbits  -

1. 90% of the raga names of Carnatic music are of female gender, some examples being - bhairavi, asaveri, sahana, ranjani, rasikapriya ... and so on!
2. Even the Gods had their names after their wives names - Lakshmi Narasimha, Lakshmi Narayana, Parvati Parameshwara, Sitaram etc!
3. A conversation between a husband and wife in the vedic period was recorded as the Upanishad!
4. A conversation between Swami Vivekananda and a foreign national went thus - The Foreign national was not impressed by the so-called Indian Culture, and asked Vivekananda what was so special about it. Swami Vivekananda replied thus - In your country, you look at every woman other than your mother as your wife, however in India, a man looks at every women other than his wife, as his mother!
5. While writing the section of Ramayana where Sita decided to accompany Rama, Valmiki actually pondered over the name of the Epic and a thought crossed his mind that he should have named it Sitayana, instead of Ramayana!

What better way to spend the evening of Women's day, than to understand what Indian culture was eons ago, where we stand today, and what women empowerment actually means to us. Kudos to Vishaka Hari and the team for giving us such a beautiful evening, and to end it with the feeling that the contributions were well spent too, towards the Girl Child initiative.

Trek to Shiv Gange

The Bangalore weather being a delight for the last couple of weeks, it was time the long standing plan of going for a trek was executed. Saturday night, we were left enthralled by Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, a beautiful take on Milkha Singh. The whole experience of knowing about the great athlete left us inspired and raring to go. But not enough to get up early next morning for a trek to Shiv Gange!! We almost called it off and rolled over to catch up on our sleep, but our son decided otherwise. He woke us with “Amma – Appa – get up, we are supposed to be climbing the mountain today to watch butterflies!”

Oh yeah?! J Not wanting to disappoint him, we mechanically went through our morning rituals, had breakfast, and pushed ourselves out of our home by around 10:30 am. Once on the road, there was no looking back. After a small detour to Malleswaram, we proceeded towards Tumkur road. Taking a left at Dobbaspet, we were welcomed by wonderful views of the ShivGange hill from afar. It looked absolutely enchanting with a halo of cloud hanging so low that it engulfed the top most tip of the hill!

We drove on till we reached the foot of the hill, parked our car and made sure we had our stomach’s fill of ragi rotis, jackfruits and biscuits to keep us going for the next 2 hours (or so we thought). With a picture book idea of what a trek consists of, I started loading a backpack with a water bottle, left over biscuits, chocolates …. but wait, before I could complete, my husband told me to drop the entire bag back into the car and climb up bare handed. Disappointment writ all across my face, I didn’t argue, because I knew he was right as soon soon as he mentioned MONKEYS. We at least needed a water bottle, said my MIL, and carried one in a plastic bag and we started on the trek.

After hardly a 20 step climb, where the paths forked, with one leading towards the temple and the other going on to the top of the hill, we had our first (and last) close encounter with a primate. The little fellow stopped us on our tracks and jumped at the plastic bag that my MIL carried. She tried to explain to the little fella that it was nothing but a water bottle. He growled, and we concluded (thank god for that!) that he didn’t quite get us. We threw the cover away, to show him that we were speaking the truth, and tried to move on. He wouldn’t let us get away so easily. He pulled at my MIL’s saree and growled again. Oh well, we lost the battle and gracefully handed him the water bottle. Off he went with it and started opening it. We didn’t stay on to see what he did, but were glad that we could now get on with our trek.

We took the route to the trek and started our walk. I told my son (a little chatterbox), to save up his energy, and take deep breaths on the way up. He followed my instructions to the T. As long as we didn’t grab their attention, the monkeys pretty much kept to themselves. However, we did note one naughty fellow grab a fellow tourist’s back pack and run away with it. When he found that there was nothing interesting in it, he just left it there for the tourist to pick it up again.

We kept continuing on the trek, with a few stops to catch our breath and of course the view all around! There was a pleasant breeze blowing all through the climb, making our climb enjoyable. Every time we looked down below, the sights never ceased to amaze us. After around an hour of climbing, we reached the huge white colored statues of Shiva and Parvathi, and heaved a sigh of relief, assuming we had finally made it to the top. We stopped to buy a bottle of water, and the kind lady selling it explained that we were just half way to the top. My jaws literally dropped open, and I took a few swigs of water to regain my composure. A few pictures later, we resumed the trek, with only my son still being at the same enthusiasm level as the start about climbing further. He refused to hold any of our hands and went on climbing. With him to inspire us, we moved on.

This section was the more difficult of the two parts. The climb was steep, with little narrow steps etched out of the rocks itself. Railings at most places helped us with the climb. Fellow trekkers ranged from as young as 4 year olds, to a 70 year old lady! There was even a lady who had lost one of her hands, and climbed with ease with just one hand to guide her through. While most of them were encouraging, some told us it was impossible to make it to the top.

We concentrated on the climb, enjoyed the breeze and finally reached the famous Nandi, which stood with all its might atop a precarious looking rock. Looking at it from down below, I didn’t think twice about climbing. Quickly reaching the top, I started to go around the Nandi when my heart skipped a beat. I had to walk past a grill which extended out beyond the rock to nothing-ness! Though it was just one step through nothingness to safety it was enough to give a scare. The next difficult part was the descent from the Nandi. While climbing up did not seem such a great deal, the descent seemed impossible. The surface seemed like a plain fall down, and it seemed almost close to impossible to get the foot into a crevice. After relaxing for a couple of minutes and watching the others do it, I finally managed to get down safely. The next few steps to reach the top of Shive Gange were almost a cake-walk, and we finally reached the top. The view all around us was more than worth all the efforts we put into the climb. We finally realized what it meant to feel on top of the world! The looming clouds made the view simple breathtaking. It was just enough to sit there, enjoy the peace and quiet, and relish the fact of accomplishing the climb!

Some tips to make your travel enjoyable and ensure it has minimum effect on the environment:

Travel light, preferably empty handed.

Wear comfortable shoes.

Eat sufficient to keep you energetic for 4 hours, before starting the travel.

Wear trousers with multiple pockets, and carry only absolute necessities in those.

Start the climb early in the morning, so that you can finish before the sun is out.

Do not litter. There are dustbins available at all the little foodie joints. Dispose waste there. Else carry it back with you.

Do not provoke the monkeys. Remember, it’s their habitat that we are invading and not vice versa. Leave them alone, and they will leave you alone.

Summer fun 2013

Summer spread its wide enticing wings in front of us. We cousins had decided that the meeting point would be Pune this time. This was so that the ladies (read girls) could catch up and freak out while the kids were being looked after by the grand mom (who loved to do just that!).  So that’s what we did, and what a blast we had. Of course we made it up to the kids by taking them to parks everyday to run around, fun zones in malls, EPIC 3D, tons of ice creams, and last but not the least – an outing to Pavana Huts – an agro tourism destination.  Pavana Huts was a petite farm house with acres of land around it, and lots of space for kids to run around, play, soak in the atmosphere of the fields and subject their taste bugs to awesome home-cooked delicacies. The website indicated that the place does not claim to be anything out of the ordinary. It was a break from the routine, in the lap of nature.

Run by Mr. Prasadh G Yelakar, Pavana Huts is the outcome of a simple idea of setting up a little farm, and opening it to people who would like to get an idea of farm life, see what it is like to grow their own crops, vegetables and fruits, laze around in the pond and just relax. Situated near Pune, in a place called Kamshet, it is easily accessible if you have your own vehicle. It takes around an hour and a half’s drive from Pune city to reach the place, and Mr. Prasadh is very accurate with his directions. As we entered through the narrow drive-way and parked our vehicle, we were welcomed by Mr. Prasadh’s eager parents. They had setup a small table with a heavenly breakfast of Poha and Upma, made in the authentic Maharashtrian style. After double helpings of the same, came some strong and super sweet chai. Though we would have preferred it a little less sugary, the chai masala that came fresh from their farm made up for it.

After that Mr. Kelkar, ever so enthusiastic about his current retired life, and ready to share his experiences, took us around the house. He had a bedroom which visitors could use to rest, at a nominal price. Beyond the hall was a kitchen where they cooked for themselves as well as the visitors. The cooking was done on chulhas which were used in olden days, to retain the taste of the rotis. They had bags of rice, jowar, bajra stored in the wide kitchen which doubled up as a store room. The 70something Mr. Kelkar explained to us that this was the best decision he had taken in his entire life - to give up working, and self sustain himself and his wife on their own farm. He seemed to enjoy walking around the fields, dealing with the couple of farmers he had, give out instructions to the boys who helped him with the electricity, plumbing, building etc.

He then took us around the farm, showing us the various crops of jowar, bajra, rice, and the various veggies and fruits that were growing around. Since it’s been just a few years from inception, they are still figuring out the seasons and how / which crops grow better when.  There was a guinea pig and rabbit coop, where the kids stepped in and they were thrilled to hold the little animals in their hand.

We did a session of boating in their man made pond just for the fun of it. Kayaking was also an option, though we didn’t give it a shot. Rest of the morning we literally slept in water. Another man made pond which was had around one and a half feet depth of water, called out to us! And none of us could resist. We lazed around for 2 hours and didn’t feel a wee bit of the heat. The kids freaked out in the water slides and the water showers, and refused to step out of it. We finally dragged them out to change for lunch.

Lunch preparation was simple Maharashtrian thali, which had their trademark Bhakri Zunka, Zunka bhakri - Maharashtrian dish is a traditional chickpea or besan based wet mix which is then tempered with mustard seeds, garlic paste and curry leaves. This zunka is then stirred with fried onion mix and enjoyed hot with jowar or bajra bhakris or rotis. Along with this was dal chawal, which we had just to taste the heavenly smelling farm grown rice. There was salad and papad to go along with, sheera and last but not the least, masala buttermilk. Buttermilk was the best part of the whole meal, and the couple served us as many helpings of the same as we wanted. There was a small bell – pizza hut ishtyle – which we could ring if we liked the food. This was to let the cooks know that their efforts were more than appreciated.

Stuffed, we contemplated as to whether we sleep, or do a trip to the near-by Pavana dam. Unanimous decision was SLEEP! J After a short refreshing nap, what next? Tea and garma garam pakodes!! Phew. Was there any space left in our tummies? Oh no, but the onion pakodes were too tempting to resist. We chatted around, and Mr. Kelkar picked an eighty year old tortoise out of its container and let it walk around. The kids got a touch and feel of the animal.

Finally, some pictures later, we said our byes to this lovely homely couple, and went back to Pune after a relaxed day! For more details visit - http://www.pavnahuts.com/

Soup time folks...

I saw this interesting soup preparation on the "Food Food" channel a few days back, and was really eager to try it out.

This recipe is a part of 'A Slice of Summer', the theme of the month all May in The Alternative, an online publication on sustainable living

Yellow Pumpkin and Sweet Corn soup. Hmm. An interesting combination. Got a chance to try it out yesterday. Here's the recipe -

My measurements here served five. The veggies - a small packet of shelled sweet corn, a 200 gm piece of yellow pumpkin and one medium sized onion. Dice up the onions and the yellow pumpkin. Heat a pan, add a teaspoon of butter into it, and saute onions till they turn golden brown. Add the diced pumpkins and sweet corn, some salt to taste, and fry for 2 minutes. Transfer this mixture into a pressure cooker, add three cups of water and cook the vegetables well. Drain the water and keep the water aside as vegetable stock. Puree the cooked vegetables well in a mixer. Add the vegetable stock and boil the soup for 5 minutes. Serve hot with some freshly ground pepper to suit individual taste. You could also add cream to the soup before serving.

I prefer the fibre of the veggies and corn in my soup. If you like your soup smooth, strain the pureed vegetables and then add the stock and bring to a boil. The soup had a nice sweetish flavor to it from the yellow pumpkin, and also a streak of peppery hotness to it. Freshly ground pepper gives a distinct flavor, the emphasis here on "freshly" ground :)... helps to keep that in mind. Didn't take pictures this time to give you a visual idea, but the outcome was simply awesome.

Simple joys of life.

Sitting on the bed with a laptop, typing away, a cup of adhrak waali chaai to help keep the yawns at bay, I can hear my 3 and a half year old son chirping all around the house, one thing after the other catching his attention.

 

Just a moment ago, he was on the verge of throwing a tantrum, accusing me of turning off the TV too soon. "But we had a deal" I tried to tell him, "that it would be just 10 minutes of watching Chota Bheem. You already crossed the limit, and its half an hour since you started watching it, and its OVER now. The show timing is up, and they are putting subtitles now, so there's nothing I can do about it."

 

Nothing I said seemed to convince him, and he was all set to yell out loudly. (Before you start having your doubts, let me tell you, his tantrums, I am told, are nothing compared to other kids. He is a very understanding child - touch wood zillion times - and this was the rarest of occasions) So being the case, I seemed to be the lucky (and spoilt?) mom who really didn't know how to deal with these rare outbursts. I tried reasoning, ignoring, placating, and striking another deal - which was - deciding to end any other sessions of Chota Bheem if he continuing whining and wailing. Bad luck. Nothing seemed to work today.

 

Just as I thought I am in for it, Naani popped in a magic sentence - "I have a pedha for you in your snack bowl, would you like to try it?" Poof. The mood turned exactly the other way round and off went he happily, had a nice little pedha and went on to arrange his little train engine set, with little word blocks on the goods carrier. He came back into my room to announce "Amma I am carrying Goods train la full of dabba jalebi". (We are Tam Brams, which explains his liking for food, especially sweets). Ready to burst into a laugh, I tried to look serious and asked to see the train. He proudly led me to show the neatly arranged goods train. 

 

Such darlings, kids. No preconceived notions, no inhibitions, no carrying over emotions, NOTHING. Just pure feelings for the moment. It is heartening to watch them and oh, how they succeed in bringing a smile into our otherwise serious lives!

 

Well, right now he is talking to his little cousin, who is all of 4 years, warning her to be wary of scorpions when she travels to Australia for her summer vacation. Can you beat that! :) Love you little fellow.

Kabini (Nagarhole National Park)

Since the little fellow's friend and their family are moving out of India soon, we thought it would be a good idea to go on a trip with them so that the little ones get some good time together. After a lot of dilly-dallying, finally the destination was decided as Kabini, and the dates were finalised for 26/27/28th weekend of November. As usual, the days passed by swiftly and Saturday dawned, pretty much dampened by continuous rains the previous night. Nevertheless, not letting that dampen our spirits, we got together around 6:40 am at our house, and after making sure we had the directions right, we set-off at 7 am. That was not bad at all for us, since we had a record of starting not earlier than 9 am on each of our trips :)

The route was pretty straight forward. We got out of Bangalore on to the Mysore road, and hit the national high-way in around an hour's time. The breakfast stop was KaduMane. After thatte idlis, some good strong coffees and playing with the birds in their little garden later, we set-off once more. The kids had a super time in the car. There was a little bit of traffic at Ramnagaram which slowed us down slightly. When we were entering Mandya (or Maddur, am not sure), we got caught by police for over speeding. Eh? Over speeding? What was the speed limit and where was it written? We asked and were told the limit was 80 and we were at 79. Uh? 79 was lesser than 80 I thought. Realizing he had spoken too fast, the traffic cop corrected himself and said that the speed limit was 70. :P I see? We saw that every person driving on that road was being caught. So we just brushed it aside as a collection drive and paid the money without argument and moved on, a wee bit irritated for being delayed for no fault of ours. After which, we crossed Mysore, and with the help of the 3G on our phone as well as the residents of Mysore, we got on to the road which took us to Kabini. The final stretch of the road was blocked and  there was a diversion on to a kuccha road for the last hour of the trip. Some broken backs later, we finally reached Jungle lodges and resorts, Kabini at 1:30 pm, just in time for a super duper lunch!

The rooms at Jungle lodges

We checked into our rooms and were briefed on what was in store for us. Since it was almsot 2:45 by the time we were done with lunch, we decided to stay around at the Gol-Ghar (which was the lunch area), and relaxed on huge hammocks near-by. At 3:30, they served some tea and biscuits, and then we dragged the sleepy, but not willing to sleep kids, into the jeep for our first safari at Kabini. What stood out was the back-breaking ride. However, no complaints there! We absolutely enjoyed the greenery, sounds of the forests, the huge teak and rose-wood trees, and the simple beauty of nature. Couldn't have been better. The spotting was pretty low though. We saw a few wild boars, tons of deers (oh dee(a)r!), a variety of birds, and one lone elephant at a distance where it was tough for the eye to spot. A wee-bit disappointed, we returned to the rooms and freshened up.

A male sambhar deer

After another dose of tea we went to the Viceroy Bungalow for a movie screening about Wild dogs. Wonderful I must say. Absolutely clear and it was an experience watching the wild dogs hunt the deers down, wild-dogs nursing their little ones and caring for them and so on. The only irony in the movie being the audience ended up feeling sad for the poor deers who were hunted down, where-as the photographer was empathizing with the wild-dogs and their receding numbers and the fact that they were missing their catches! Guess that's the work of nature eh?

After the movie, it was dinner time. A light dinner and some bon-fire later, we crashed into our rooms for a good night's sleep. After what felt like a few minutes, we were given our wake-up call at 5:45 am, to get ready and assemble for our morning jeep safari. We hurriedly shook the poor kids out of their deep slumber, quickly freshened up and assembled at the Gol Ghar for some much needed tea/coffee/milk. Then we packed ourselves into the jeeps and entered the forests, braving yet another bumpy ride. This time, with not so enthusiastic team mates and a bored naturalist, we had to keep our eyes wide open to spot animals ourselves. Hubby proved to be the sharpest of the lot, and he ended up spotting a mother and baby elephant, and a tusker (male) too followed suit. And the best catch of all, he shook us from our reverie on spotting a leopard jump down from a tree!! Wowie. For some foolish reason, I assumed the leopard was just going to hang around in our presence and I had all the time in the world to adjust my camera, zoom and shoot. Stupid me! While I wasted my time doing all this, the leopard saw us, and quietly slunk away into the bushes. Oh no!! No pictures of the leopard. I couldn't believe it. We drove closer to the spot, rather we went exactly to the spot the leopard was in, waited around for almost 20 minutes, but the leopard was wary of humans, and did not return. Oh well, at-least we feasted our eyes on the leopard for about 3 minutes! A wild-cat roaming free in the forests, at a distance of 30 feet from us .... what more could we ask for? Super cool.

We then got back to the resort for some nice hot breakfast of baked beans, bread + butter + jam, upma, kesari bhaath, and so many other varieties. After this, there was a little coracle ride, just for the fun of it, and then we retired to our rooms. The rest of the morning was just chilling around, playing with the kids, chatting and then it was time for lunch. After lunch, we had very little time with us before we got back on to another safari, this time on the boat. We were a wee bit rushed up by the jungle lodges team, as we had to go pick the naturalist Arjun from Orange County, along with the people living in the Orange County as well. A little disappointed at having to skip tea, we set off on the boat ride. The calming effect of the boat ride and the naturalist's interesting tidbits about the birds and animals around us nullified the "no tea" disappointment, and the journey proved to be the most enjoyable one so far.

We spotted the Malabar pied Hornbills. Yeah, so what? Was my first reaction. Arjun claimed it to be one of the most special kind of birds. Why? Here is the story. These horn-bills are the only kind of birds/animals who find a partner and live with this partner for their life-time!! If the male dies, female lives without another partner till her life time, and vice-versa as well. Wow! And when these birds reproduce, the mother stays inside her home (which is a hole in the tree) for the entire duration of laying eggs, incubating and hatching. Both parents close the hole in the tree with mud, tree pulp, their droppings etc., and leave only a small aperture for the father to bring food for the mother and the children. This goes on for close to 90 days, until the little ones are slightly bigger to be able to learn to fly. Interesting! The next time on, when he showed us the horn-bill, I looked up and tried hard to spot it with renewed respect for the bird in my heart!! :)

Croc resting

Our boat driver was one Mr. Nagaraj. The ease with which he spotted birds/animals was just unbelievable. We were lucky to have him and Arjun on our trip. Both of them kept us engaged with their own areas of expertise. Nagaraj took us really close to a crocodile resting on the banks of the river. Since the crocodile is a cold-blooded animal, it needs to regulate its body-temperature. Since the sun was up that day, the croc had come to rest on the banks of the river to take in the warmth. Arjun made sure we kept pin-drop silence, lest we ended up disturbing the crocodile and it had to go back to the waters. The crocodile going back into the waters might have seemed like no big deal to us initially, however, when Arjun explained the reason as to why it was on the banks, we felt really bad once when due to some noise made by an adjoining boat, the croc had to jump back into the waters. Arjun mentioned that once it goes back in fearing attack, it might take days for it muster up courage to come back up on the banks, which could disturb its entire body temperature cycle. Hmm.

Cormorants in their nests

Another interesting fact about a bird called Cormorant (which was aplenty in these waters) was that they do not have the oily lining on their feathers like other birds do. The oil coating helps the waters to drain off from the feathers quickly and hence birds generally are not bothered by the water. However incase of these cormorants, they do not have the oil glands which produce these linings, and hence after fishing for food, they rest on the banks of the river with their wings spread wide apart. So with this renewed piece of knowledge when we looked around, we realized that all the cormorants were actually standing on the river banks with their wings wide apart, drying out their feathers. Awesome!!!

A tusker

After spotting a tusker up-close, we headed back. Arjun egged us to use our binoculars and scan the forest for tigers as it was a huge task to spot tigers. They might just be lying in front of our eyes but we would miss them easily. However hard we scanned, we were not lucky enough to spot a tiger. However, enriched by the information and excited by the entire boat ride, we got back to the resort and spent the rest of the evening chatting about and relaxing in the ayurveda spa that the resort had. What a day it had been. However, we decided to give another shot at spotting tigers. The next morning, we got onto another boat safari. We missed the naturalist this time. However, our boat driver was Nagaraj again, and he made up for that by spotting a water snake this time! We even saw a water snake zoom past us in the water, right next to the boat. Beautiful!

Water snake on the rock

The exciting trip finally came to an end as it was time to check-out after the boat safari. The kids had a blast through the trip as they got to see each other all the time, and they had plenty of time to dig around in the sand and play to their hearts content for these 3 days. We checked out, refreshed and relaxed after three days of safaris and pampering at the resort! What a weekend. :) 

Jog falls, Tavarekoppa, Bhadra.

Another long weekend meant another trip around Bangalore. Having read about Shimoga and Jog falls in my text books when I was a kid, I was curious to see the famous Jog falls of Karnataka. A marriage in Shimoga was all the excuse we needed to embark on a trip to see the Jog falls. 

We left home around 9 am on Saturday. We took the Tumkur route, crossed Tiptur, Arasikere, Kadur, Birur, Bhadravati and finally reached Shimoga. The main crops around these areas is areca nut or betel nut. So on the way, we found a lot of specialized farm trucks, on which sonny dear went for a ride with his dad. He even got a ride back in a luggage auto. What more could the little hero ask for!

Since we had time till Sunday evening for the wedding, we decided to continue towards Sagara, a place closer to Jog falls. Being a long weekend, all the good home stays around Jog falls had been booked already. We did not get any accommodation initially. However, the people running the home stays around Jog falls turned out to be very helpful, and after a few phone calls, they got us a room at Shankara mutt at Sagara. This place had a room with a double bed and a bathroom and acted as a good overnight dump for us. They did not provide food, and we visited a near by restaurant called Varadhashree lodge, which served good south indian food (and ofcourse filter coffee!!). There was a quaint little Raghavendra swamy temple just next to the mutt. We spent a peaceful one hour there, and saw the preparations going on for the Karthikai (a tamil month) deepam there. The temple trustee was a very helpful person. He took us to the nearby market and introduced us to the owner of a shop which sold wooden artifacts. Sagara is famous for sandalwood and ivory carving. Lot of wooden idols and temple mantaps are carved beautifully and the expressions on the idols are captured wonderfully. We picked a little temple mantap for ourselves and returned to our room to crash for the night. 

Next morning, after a quick coffee at the Varadhashree lodge, we moved on to the market place to see if we could get rice Kadubus. Sagara and Shimoga are famous for this delicacy. However, we were too early for the sleepy village. We had to make do with the usual idly and khara bath from a Mysore cafe, and then proceeded towards Jog Falls which was a 30 km drive from Sagara. 

We heard from the local people that this was not the best time to visit Jog Falls as the volume of water falling was pretty low during this period of the year. So we saw, when we reached there. We decided to climb down the 1900 set of stairs to reach the bottom of the falls and experience the cold water under our feet (and hair for who so ever desired :P)

The climb down was pretty easy, with gravity helping us. We didn't think of the trip back up, and just decided to enjoy the water and the monkeys jumping all around the place. After relaxing for a while at the bottom we decided to start the walk up the 1900 stairs. And boy! wasn't it a tough one. Saving our breaths, taking some quick swings of lemonade, butter-milk and maaza, waiting every few minutes to gaze at the rainbow formation across the falls, we finally made it to the top. After some lunch (We couldn't eat anything it all. Liquids were all we could take), we sat in the car and headed back towards Shimoga. 

On the way to Shimoga, Tavarekoppa wild life safari beckoned us and in we went to take a look at the tigers roaming free and the ferocious leopards safe in their cages (or so we thought). I got the scare of my life here when two leopards pounced on my camera when, in my excitement to take some good pictures, finding a little gap wide enough for the camera lens, I went a tad too close to the cage. To top it, I even had the flash on. We got to see a lot of monkeys playing havoc too. Anyone having a pack of pop corn or biscuits, beware! Please make sure you have it all zipped up in the bag and the monkeys don't even get an inkling that there are eatables. They jumped and grabbed the food from anyone displaying it and walking around the zoo. Wonderful experience it was for our sonny boy. He got an "up, close and real" experience of the monkeys and their antics. 

  

After the safari, we headed towards Shimoga. Got into Samrat Ashok Hotel and Lodge, and after a cup of coffee, went up to rest a while. The evening was spent at the reception of a friend, and after the tiring day, we slept really well that night. 

Monday morning, it was time to move on towards Bangalore. Google maps indicated another interesting place called Bhadra dam, on the outskirts of Bhadravati, which was on our way back. A small deviation from the National Highway took us to Lakkavalli village, where we could  go on top close to the lighthouse near the Bhadra Dam. 

From there we had a beautiful view of the Bhadra river, and also spotted the Jungle Lodges (Bhadra) resort where people were going boating. Our next stop had to be that, so after spending a few quiet moments taking in the scenic beauty from the Bhadra dam, we moved to River Tern Lodges and asked for a boat ride across the river. Another beautiful discovery this. The steam boat took us along the forest edge and we even spotted a tusker on the way. The poor animal got a little perturbed with the noise of our steam boat, and moved away from the water further deep into the jungle. The river tern lodge was a beautiful setup by Jungle Lodges and resorts, with little huts right in the middle of the forested area. Imagine sitting in the balcony of your home looking out at lush greenery and a river beyond with butterflies and birds to give you company. Wow. What beauty and what peace! Dream on. We had to satisfy ourselves with the boat ride. The navigator Deepak gave us some good information about the area and the animal density, and we left for Bangalore promising ourselves that we would come back.