For the uninitiated, I am just back from Hyderabad after spending a good 3 weeks in that lake'n'hill city. The flight was delayed by 3 hrs at departure itself and as much as I was eager to catch upon life here ... I was not disappointed by the 'challenges' that emerged - a Highway that is worse than a mud road in a village, exorbitantly charging taxi drivers, jam-packed roads and to compound it all, rain from the above. Mumbai this year has gone to the dogs!! As I came near the Powai lake and saw the new widened road - I felt being guilty of eating into nature. The road widening along the Powai lake has eaten up parts of the lake and thick vegetation that lined it up on all sides. The way we are playing with nature, it is no wonder we are facing its furies like the Floods and Hurricanes It is an irony that I chose to live in Powai to enjoy the vegetation and natural beauty it abounds, but it is because of dwellers like me that the pressure on the area's infrastructu

Well ... its been quite some time - we visited Lohagadh fort on 24th July ... considerable water has run under the bridge since then (pun intended).... and it is due to waters on Mumbai roads that I got the photos of the trip quite late. Lohagarh fort was built by the Marathas to guard the important routes on which trade takes place. It is situated near Bhaje village in Malvili, near Lonavala. It stands on a 3400 ft high hill, and the tough terrain makes it truly Lauh-Garh, implying invincibility of the fort. The fort could not be conquered by any attacking ruler, no matter how big an army he commandeered. The strategic marvel that this fort is, it is surpassed only by the monumental strategic blunder that lead to its fall. A twin fort, christened Visapur, was constructed on a hill adjacent to Lohagadh. Due to internal feuds between the then Maratha Rulers, the Visapur fort was acquired by the British with little resistance. The Lohgadh fort on the adjacent hill was then captured witho

Oh well!!! It was my first trip by flight - to Hyderabad. An official trip by the way but more of a picnic than work 'coz it comfortably extended into the weekend; so that I could spend time with many friends. Let me start at the beginning - the take off from Mumbai airport... And then came the best part - the aerial view of Mumbai. Mumbai looks no less than New York from the sky - wonder why no one ever used these shots in our Bollywood movies. Carter Road looks like this from above: But soon as the plane flew into the clouds, no views could be seen - it was just the clouds and the sun. Flying during monsoon has its own advantages and disadvantages. Hyderabad looks quite different from Mumbai - mainly because you can see open fields till you land. The city obviously is smaller but it is very beautiful. But, as I realized it during the return flight, the city looks really great at night. With 3 big water bodies (lakes) and necklaces of lights around them. The rest of the city itsel

After I came to NITIE and saw how the alumni network is managed, I understood one of the major things lacking in BIT (my engg. school) was this. Serendipitously Sallu (Manish Saluja) one day called Shubham and told him about invisionfree forum that he had discovered and gave the idea to make it a discussion forum for their batchmates; when Shubham discussed the idea with me - we thought of extending it as a an Alumni Portal for all alumni of BIT and thus started BIT Alumni www.bitalumni.4t.com the (un)official portal for BITans. Today we have become a 500 member strong site and the largest online conglomeration of BITans. The next logical step to this venture was organizing Alumni meets in different cities. As a small beginning we organized a reunion of all BITans of our batch in Mumbai-Pune (15 turned up) but our meet has fired BITans in other cities as well for such ventures . . . its really been 'main chalta gay kaarwan bantaa gaya' for 4 of us founding members - myself, Sh

Came Diwali and I rushed off to Pune .. . Mom had been in Pune for 2 days and Abhishek and Baba (that’s what I call my Dad) joined us a day after I went. Pune was again enjoyable, a break from my campus life... I spent time reading books (completed ‘Da Vinci Code’) and sleeping ;). And in the evenings it was mostly time to visit relatives – we have so many in Pune that it takes all your time. Just a few days were left when Abhishek told me that his holidays were till 22nd and he had almost a week to spend at home in Bhopal after he returned from Pune. I suggested why not he comes along with me to Mumbai rather than spending time alone at Home. Fortunately mom-dad also concurred and I went to hunt for proper reservations which we got. That was it!! The stage set for fun and masti !! Abhi and I came back to NITIE on 15th night. I had contemplated that I would be busy with classes so Abhi might get bored. . . but it seems God had arranged for Abhi serendipitous visit . . . my classes kep

In my “Life mein twist hai!” series I described about my last weekend and before that about my home trip during Dussera. Then while I was going thru my blog I thot that I’ve missed the period in between and it isn’t that this hasn’t been exiting. Well the day I came back from home I implemented a log-given-promise to Milind. To remove my moustaches .. . I should say I looked good, and may be a few years younger too. But, when I told mom about this she told me to get back 2 my old looks (without seeing me) . . . and more so since many companies were expected in campus I also decided to re-grow my moustache. However during those 7 days I was feeling quite like a celebrity . . almost everyone asking me why I did it? And no-one seemed to believe that I did it just because I wanted to .. . these folks need to watch Forrest Gump! That weekend we (me, Shubham, Milind and Ashita) went to Shirdi. Ashita’s friend Vatika also joined us. The trip was fun and it felt great when Vatika st

The next day started late .. we had no plans; had breakfast and then Nimish made some calls to his friends . . it turned out that we were going to R-Mall from where Nimish would leave . . R-mall trip was pretty enjoyable too .. its been a long time since I’ve surfed any market . . .neither me nor Shubham are shopping freaks, so we visit markets only for our essential needs and never indulge market surfing when we move out in Mumbai . . but Nimish is a different guy . . he not only shops but makes shopping a wonderful experience by cracking jokes at every small and big item he notices . . .Nimish finally found his shoes here and also bought some other stuff . . one of his friends from his company was also there . . then we moved to Nirmal Lifestyles and had lunch at Smokin’ Joes.. well ‘twas time to c off Nimish. . . When I returned to campus, I found the badminton court buzzing with activity and all were waiting for Mixed doubles starting. Here I must mention that Sports Meet was on s

Saw this tagline on a hoarding the other day and discovered it happening to me too ... he he .. life has been fun since Diwali break ... I have spent another weekend today roaming around Mumbai. Last weekend I was roaming around with my Bro Abhishek but more on that later .. abhi I am just back seeing off Nimish to Pune. On thursday came an offer from ashii to go to ISB . . . I thought why not? After all this might be the last B-school event for me .. I had almost decided that I would go when news came that 2 tickets were booked. .. now Ashita and Milind had plans to go on those tickets .. and since Payal had almost given up on going so I was left alone without travel plans .. all my plans melted away .. I felt as if this weekend wud b a waste , shud say I was sad for the day.. . but soon came in a call from Nimish declaring he was coming to Mumbai . . . and thus started the bonanza Me and Shubham had plans to visit Elephanta Caves since long .. . Nimish gave us the opportunity ..

Ah!! What speed.. its hardly 12 hours since my last post and 12 visits have happened … god!! This is contagious ….. Anyway… here goes my post .. read on Soon after Prerana the next weekend was Dussera and I found an excuse to go home . . Home? He he … it was less of home and more of roam… I reached Bhopal on the 11th and proceeded to Indore the very same evening, reaching Indore by night. The next day we went over to Mandu – the old capital of many rulers of central India during the medieval times. Had lots of historical site-seeing … an old abandoned mosque, Rani Roopmati’s palace, one fort and Jahaz Mahal – a palace made like a giant ship with two ponds on its two sides, completing the ship-like effect. The trip was fun .. lots of driving and good time spent with mom-dad and Abhi after a looong time. The next day we proceeded to Onkareshwar – a Mahadev temple on the Banks of Narmada. Onkareshwar is specially known because it is a point where both the Satpura and Vindhyachal ra

The next day we started our day with breakfast in a local shack; enjoyed the generic Gujarati food there. Then we decided to cover our farthest point first – the Akshardhaam temple in Gandhinagar. It took us about 1½ hrs to reach the place. This was the much famed temple on which terrorists had staged a hostage drama some months ago. But on all other counts I had expected a normal temple and didn’t expect my visit to last more than ½ hr.         As I entered after thorough security checks into the premises, I saw green lush lawns and a long pathway…. Nothing was visible beyond the pathway. As I walked across the pathway into the large door, a large open space opened before me. It was now that I realized how big this place was. But the real fun was yet to come. We went into the temple and paid our respects to lord Swaminarayan. It was a very beautiful temple and the carving on the inside was articulate and impressive. I was surprised to find that there was not a single notice or plaqu

The next day we both woke up early and got ready in our shoes to trek. It was pleasant outside; we went to the cliff via a backdoor in our hotel. But after a 10-meter ascend we found that the way up had been blocked by a thick overgrowth of thorny fence. We tried to find a way out from all sides but in vain. This fence was probably erected to restrict domestic animals from wandering beyond a point. But this could not spoil our spirit, we came down and tried to get a Birdseye view of the cliff; and finally found a small opening at the edges of the hotel walls. Then we started climbing up, the rise was a bit steep and it was a challenging trek. But the fun started when we were about 7-8 meters below the peak – and we saw a temple. As we moved up we found that this was an abandoned temple, probably of the tribes and they might be visiting it only on occasions like marriage. It was nice and cool up there and we both enjoyed the place because we could see almost the whole of Abu from here.

The next day started early. I and Abhishek (my younger brother) got up early and rushed to the railway reservation counter to cancel our ticket and also to book our bus tickets. After coming back we had our breakfast…. And soon our tourist bus came and we set out for the ‘Abu Tour’. Abu, as I said in the last post, is a small city and there are not more than 4 tourist destinations as such. But the tourism corporations and the municipality of Mount Abu have made it a more enjoyable place than what it could be. Apart from the tourist attractions the Abu tour includes some artificial destinations. The natural tourist destinations include Dilwara temple, Adhar Devi Temple, Achalgarh, honeymoon point, sunset point and the Guru Shikhar (highest point of Gujarat Rajasthan). This fills in just 5 hours of the trip. The rest of the tour is populated with the Nakki Lake, the Universal peace hall, World Peace Park and the world peace museum (all of the Brahmakumari godly university). These non-tou

On 29th of June, my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. To commemorate this event we went on a trip to mount Abu and Ahmedabad. The planning for the event was done well in advance; in fact information about Abu and its tourist attractions had already been found on the net before I reached Bhopal. I have always been the ‘working-son’ for my parents. What that means is that both my parents wait for me to come before they launch any new work. For example – planning a trip or painting the house or buying a new appliance etc.; even things like changing the position of a wall clock and sofa set are delayed for my arrival. It is this training that has made me an enthusiastic and ardent worker even outside. I am known for my working spirit and ability to get things done. So, when I came home, I was pushed into operational planning – dates, travel plans, tickets, hotels etc. All this done, we set out soon for our trip. Everything went to the clock. We left Bhopal by train on ev

Just 2-3 days after I had visited the Indira Sagar site that news started pouring in about it. Monsoon was at its onset and the dam waters were rising to their expected levels for the first time. The district of Harsud was the major target. Authorities had passed orders to vacate the area and even the electricity and telephone lines had been snapped off. But the commoners of the area were reluctant to leave their homeland; reasons like non-payment of relief amount, inadequate arrangements at new location and corruption were sighted. But finally the media’s loud protest and intervention pulled the CM to the site and relief operations were speeded up. Whether the CM’s visit did sort out all the issues is questionable but it at least got the work moving up fast. Media the fourth pillar of democracy finally did help the commoners get their say to the world. Above all discussion brings one fact to the fore; all the mega projects aimed at mass development and national growth finally are not

Jawaharlal Nehru called Dams as the temples of modern India. One hardly realizes the outlook behind this statement without actually seeing a Dam. Being in Bhopal I have seen a lot of dams since childhood so when my father offered a visit to the Indira Sagar Project I wasn’t surprised. It had been a long time since our family had gone on an outing (all together) and this was an ideal time and moment as my grandfather was also visiting us… We set out early in the morning by car; this was going to be my longest drive – the place was about 210kms from Bhopal near Khandva district. The journey was full of adventure and a cool drive except for 25km patch of bad road. I got a chance to drive in all seasons – it was sunny initially and it started raining as we reached nearer to the dam site. The trip was just like another till we reached the site. Cool weather, green lush surroundings, ghats, mountains and even a river bed crossing us. The river obviously was Narmada on which this dam was bu