New beginnings....

I found an oar for my raft,
Renewed strength to row again.
Towards the guiding light,I gently drift,
Calmly hit the sandy shores....then,
the land trembles and unwraps the present of HOPE.

Crimson hue with the hint of pink,
Like a tiny heart squeezed to bleed,I squeeze the sponge.
to paint on the white canvas,forcing it to drink,
the color and the soulless white to be expunged.
Staring at the canvas,waiting for its heart to beat with HOPE.

The man with an unusual surname walks in unannounced,
Unsure of his intentions,I hid and waited.
I find it difficult to read you Mr.Hope,
but I trust you to revive my heart with the love beating,
   .....I Await for new beginnings.

Dis-organised

Squeezing the eraser,
I try removing the grids,the numbers, the red and black,
but the black lines keep reappearing ,
the grids form  and the numbers slowly attack.

After that month,that sheet is flipped or torn,
hidden till it resurrects after another three sixty five days.
That date and month will haunt you mercilessly till you are reborn,
the days of the month shift silently like a pack of wolves and preys,

Why can't there be infinite months, infinite dates,
not one single combination to repeat.
make new memories unassociated with numbers ,as a new sun awaits.
let it remain loose ended ,continuous and incomplete.

Merlion Memories : Visit to Singapore : Days 5&6

Day 5 : Universal Studios Singapore and Chinatown

There was a sense of calm in the morning as we has already booked the tickets to USS the day before/ After a very quick breakfast (not much to expect after having stayed at the same hotel for the last three days of course),we took the MRT to Harbor Front and the Sentosa Express from the fourth floor of the VivoCity Mall. USS opens at 10 am ,and we were there by eleven am. A mandatory picture by the rotating globe (logo) of Universal Studios and a map in hand , we were ready and excited to explore what Hollywood had to offer! The Theme park is divided by themes : Hollywood, Sci-Fi City, Ancient Eygpt,The lost world, Far Far Away land and Madagascar (as my memory recalls). Hollywood had characters from Seaseme street and we went on a Spaghetti chase with them (well, I'm too grown up for the Big Bird) , There was a ride in a one-room movie set ,it was bought to life when they simulated a tornado destruction(narrated by Steven Spielberg) Good !.We watched live shows of Monster Rock and some dancers who did some kick ass B-Boying and Hip-Hop. The Sci-Fi City was next ,and the transformers fan in me could wait to take the ride. The Transformer ride was brilliant. Very well done and just a joy ! We fought Megatron and the decepticons. Wohoo! This ride is the best pick of all the rides! Must not miss under any circumstances. The battlestar Galactica Roller coasters looked like a thrilling ride, but it was closed for maintenance that day. Bad luck. To avoid any more rush, we moved back to Madagascar right after quick lunch. The Madagascar characters are my favorite and the merchandise was very adorable, was too tempted to buy them all ! The crate ride was good. We entered Far Far Away land with the Shrek and his folks. The mini roller coaster ride was fun. The 4-D adventure of Shrek would have been much more enjoyable if not for our stupidity of picking the wrong seats ! We sat in seats in the middle portion, only to realize in the end that it has restricted movement designed intentionally for young kids who'd get scared otherwise! A little disappointed. We entered ancient Egypt, and the ride was mind-blowing. It was thrilling and scary as it plunges you into darkness! Another ride one shouldn't miss. The lost world had a ride where you get completely drenched in water. Lucky that we were carrying rain coats(it was a gloomy day in SG) , thus they came handy. Ponchos were provided for 10SGD as well. Was a good ride ! Some more photos with good merchandise! Exhausted but very content. Thank you Universal Studios Singapore !

We really did “Ride the Movies” .

Late evening already and one place that was checked off in our list. Chinatown. Took the metro to Chinatown and started with the intention of window shopping,but ended up buying quite a bit. The oriental Chinese work was new to us and very interesting. Dragged our tired feet home. A day well-spent.

Day 6 : Mustafa Center and departure from SG

Last day at Singapore and it felt good. I loved the place,don't get me wrong , this is to say I was more than content with what Singapore had to offer. Our flight was at 4pm,giving us some time in the morning. Having heard a LOT about the Mustafa Center at Little India,we decided to visit it. Mustafa Center is a shopping Mall that roofs everything from hardware to clothes for a discounted price and is open 24 hours. Huge warning on very bad facilities management here . I did find some reasonably priced phones and other electronics ,might be worth picking up . We were back in time for lunch and took the cab to the airport. Hadn't mentioned previously in my post (Day 1) , but Changi Airport is huge and very well-maintained ! Explore the vast airport before boarding the flight.

Reviews :

-- Plan a visit to Universal Studios on a weekday to avoid long queues for rides.

-- Carry a Rain Coat/poncho to save on further expenses of buying a poncho for the rides that would drench you.

-- Carry lunch if possible ,eating at USS might be slightly expensive.

--Lockers to keep baggage for some of the rides(namely at ancient Egypt) are free for the initial 45 minutes and cost 10SGD for the following hour. Plan well to avoid excess expenditure.

-- Souvenir shopping on streets of Chinatown and Bugis appealed more to me than in Mustafa Shopping Center.

     Thank you Singapore for a wonderful time !

Merlion Memories : Visit to singapore : Day 4

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Day 4 : MacRitchie Reservoir, S.E.A aquarium and Songs of the Sea.

   This was by far the best day in the travelogue. We set out earlier than usual to get to MacRitchie Reservoir for a hike. Took a bus , but got off the wrong stop and asked around for our way . Although traveling by bus is straightforward , the metros are more convenient. We started our hike from the reservoir. A vast dam reservoir were activities like still water kayaking and canoeing  can be done as well (well,of course you need to be one star certified to rent a kayak). A board of the many well-marked hiking routes caught our attention but we choose the hike to the treetop walk. The hike was a slight climb and the tall trees kept the shade. Quite a number of people were hiking , running the incline and even practicing some tai chi. It is a good 5km walk (seemed like more somehow) to the tree top walk. Hikes always make me happy,this was happy till we saw the sign . We hiked a good five km to reach the tree top walk only to find out that it is closed on Mondays .very bad planning on our part. The tree top walk looked beautiful nonetheless and I heard from a couple of localities there that they have a guided tours on the last Saturday of every month where one can spot the feathered visitors . As compared to have trekked only in India,this is my first to notice well marked routes and even a ranger station , the facilities at the rangers station was very kept , I couldn't help but draw the comparison with bad facilities even in a city bus stop in India . Generally the hike ends at Bukit Timah national park , on the other side of the treetop walk. Unable to complete the hike at Bukit Timah, we traced our way back and but instead walked on tar roads alongside the Singapore Island Country Club . Took a bus back to Little India and gobbled up some good food and masala tea.

        The next destination was S.E.A aquarium ,Sentosa resorts and Universal Studios . We went around in little India asking for good prices for the tickets . It's rather expensive otherwise ,75SGD for USS. One of the travel agents gave us a good deal of all these three inclusive for 99SGD. Happy with the reduced rates ,we took the MRT to Harbor front and took the Sentosa express to the island . First up South East Asian aquarium,the world's largest aquarium. The marine life at its finest,this place is a must visit and the fishes look happy as well. My favorites were the eels and the baby sharks . It was very touristy as well though with a lot of flash photography and videos being taken. After spending close to 2 hours at the aquarium, we took the metro which runs within Sentosa to the beach station and joined the long queue to catch seats for the songs of the sea show. It is a light and sound show on the beach. Was enjoyable,but kids would enjoy it a lot more and this is when the song of "Singapooora Singapooora" caught on.

Reviews -

-- MacRitchie- start off early to hike,can avoid the hot sun as well. Make sure to check when the treetop walk is open. They claim that many migratory birds can be spotted,carry along a binoculars.

-- Find travel operators in Little India or Chinatown  to get discounted rates for Universal studios and activities at sentosa island. 

Hiking Routes at MacRitchie  :

Glimpse of marine life at S.E.A Aquarium :

 Eels :

Sharks :

Merlion Memories : Visit to Singapore: Day 3

Day 3 : Botanical Gardens, Singapore Zoo and Night Safari

   Woke up to rain pattering on the windows. After a heavy breakfast, we set off to Singapore Botanical Gardens. We decided to use the buses today. The bus stop names are posted at the bus stop,so you'll know where exactly to get off. We counted the number the stops to get off at the right one. But we seemed to have counted wrong and went two stops ahead, took the bus in the opposite direction and found our way to the gardens. It's a leisure garden which celebrated its 150 years recently. It's always calming to enter a park and to be surrounded by green. The park was alive more so because of the morning rains. There's a small swan lake which had a handsome sculpture of swans. This place felt really good and absolutely non-touristy. The orchids on display at the national Orchid garden were beautiful ! Very well documented,there were information boards about the orchids. It was pleasant weather thankfully,so we weren't too tired yet. The National Orchid Garden is definitely worth a visit. Thumbs up! We had a lunch picnic on one of the benches. The place was blissful in a way, lots of children playing,families on lunch picnics, dogs running about wagging their happy tails. Just a wonderful morning !
   We took the MRT to Ang Mo Kio. At Ang Mo Kio , once again no problems finding the bus interchange to go to the Singapore Zoo. After a 15 minutes ,we got the bus no 138 to the zoo. It was a little after 2 pm when we got there. The park hopper pass got us right in,without having to wait. We waited a while for the tram. We made it a point not to get off on all the stops in the tram as getting a seat on the tram again is rather difficult. The animals were interesting ! The chimpanzees and orangutans were my favorite ! The polar bear was huge ! and so adorable and scary. We managed to catch the feeding show of the Polar bear. Among other lovely animals we saw the tiger, zebras, rhinos, giraffes, cheetah (wow!!). We watched the elephant show (a lot of people!) and the sea lion show. A part of me felt horrible to see these dangerous and beautiful animals domesticated and kept in a zoo,but from what we read, looks like they are more in danger in the wild. If  there's one thing I learnt after the zoo visit,its about wildlife conservation. Lets please do our part to conserve the wildlife.
    The Night safari opens at 7:30 pm. Completely underestimating the crowds , we lazily went there only at 7pm. The crowd was absolutely mad! The length of the queues there reminded me of temple visits in India ! The Sunday evening saw humongous crowds ! In the mad rush, we couldn't get in on time to watch the creatures of the dark show at 7:30pm (and the next was at 9:30pm). In utter confusion , we ended up waiting at the queue for the Japanese tram ,only to realize it after a while and had a hearty laugh. The waiting time was an  hour. We saw the rhinos, deers, hyenas among many other animals. There were no dearth of the number of animals at the singapore zoo , but it didn't appeal to me much. Maybe I went in with a lot of expectation about a safari in the WILD or so. It felt very artificially placed there under a neon bulb. At the end of it, I definitely didn't think it was worth it. Although i did notice a lot of young children enjoyed it ! We retraced our way to Little India and out our tired feet to rest .

Review :
 -- Botanical gardens is a MUST visit ! Go as early as possible .
 -- Please avoid weekends for the zoo and safaris If unavoidable, please get in line 40 minutes before.
 -- In two minds whether to suggest to skip the night safari. Kids would really enjoy it though.  

At the National Orchid Garden,Singapore Botanical Garden :

Swan Lake , Singapore Botanical Garden :

   Elephants at Play, Show at Singapore Zoo :

Merlion Memories : Visit to Singapore : Day 2

Day 2 : Jurong Bird Park,Singapore Flyer,Raffles and Bugis

     We set out after breakfast at 10 am heading for the easiest transport around the city. Little India MRT station to Chinatown MRT. At Chinatown , we bought the 3-day MRT tourist Pass at 30SGD. Continued our journey to Boon Lay. At Boon Lay, the directions to the bus interchange  were well written and easy to  find. After about a 10 minute wait ,we boarded bus 194 that takes you to the entrance of the bird park. At the bird Park, we bought the 3-in-one Park hopper pass (that covers the bird park,night safari and sng zoo inclusive of the tram rides). The tram rides generally give you a glimpse of everything around the park so that you can explore on your own when you get off, there are some stops along the way in the tram ride and you could alight the tram again once done with that portion of the park. Beautiful birds and a very well kept park ! Had a good time feeding the Lory's and at the Royal Pigeon's area. The flamingos were a delight to observe,as there beaks quiver and their entire head vibrate as they sip water. Delightful and worth a visit ! By afternoon we left the bird park to make a quick pit stop at Little India for some food. We discovered Anand Bhavan which was quite a huge relief  for mum's south Indian food craving. At 5 pm,we took the MRT to Promenade to ride the Singapore Flyer. A ride on the flyer costs 33SGD but luckily the hotel we stayed at gives us a discount of 15%. The ride on the Singapore flyer lasted about 40 minutes but enjoyable. The city looks beautiful from that altitude.We caught a glimpse of everything around the harbor area of Singapore and beyond. The people who constructed this structure have done a phenomenal job, the sheer magnitude of the Flyer makes you wonder. We ambled around the Harbor Front. The structure of Esplande resembles the fruit Durian's outer cover, amazing architecture. We stopped by an open auditorium where a young Singaporean funk rock band melodiously entertained the crowd. Was a pleasant cultural experience when she sang a foreign language song(I didn't register the name when she mentioned it). Walked along to the Merlion Park , and watched the laser show cast from the Marina Bay Sands. The waters glimmered from the reflection of the city lights.Sparkling. On the way back , we took a reroute to Bugis and shopped around a bit. It's overwhelming. and you can get basically anything at Bugis Street ! But I found it cheaper to shop in Chinatown.  Collapsed on the fluffy bed by 10:30pm with tired feet.

Reviews -
  -- Get to the Park as soon as it opens, you can catch the bird feeding shows. At the Park, if it is too crowded,avoid getting off at every tram station because it's quite a wait to alight on them again. Try and carry some packed lunch, to eat inside the bird park is expensive.
 -- The laser show at 8pm at Marian Bay Sands is worth a watch.
 -- Take the Singapore Flyer at twilight for best views. Nice souvenir magnets at Bugis,must buy!

Feeding the lory at the Bird Park :

 Business hub Singapore :

Merlion Memories : Visit to Singapore : Day 1

  Where : Singapore

  When :  August 9th - 15th

 Mode of travel  : No Travel agent, no packaged tours! *note: Singapore is very convenient and safe to make your own plans to travel around* .

 Experience : Read on ! *Will earnestly try to keep the descriptions short*.

  Day ONE : Checked in . Explored Orchard Road and around.

      Boarded the flight to Colombo on Srilankan airlines at 3 a.m from Bangalore. After an hour,landed at the Colombo airport.It's a rather small airport. I was impressed by the Internet kiosks at the international boarding area ,very convenient. Boarded the next flight(srilankan airlines) to Singapore at 7 am Colombo time. The boarding at Sri Lanka for the flight was difficult as the boards would read: flight number --> boarding, and we would get into the long queues for check in, when the ground staff would tell us that the board read wrong and we weren't boarding. Frustrating ! After a good four hours of catching up on sleep ,we landed at Singapore. I was slightly scared to take a peek as we were flying over Singapore for landing, but gathered the courage. Beautiful view! I've seen pictures of the a lone island  surrounded by vivid  blue waters around only in photographs, but this was truly mesmerizing ! Landed at 1 pm (sg time), had a pickup till the hotel. Greeted by a humid atmosphere.
    Most of the hotels at SG have a check-in time at 3 pm. We checked in at Parc Soverign (http://www.parcsovereign.com/) on Albert Street, close to Little India. In my opinion, plus points : the location was perfect, 5 minutes form the Little India MRT, 15 minutes into Little India and 2 minutes away from South Indian food, not in the heart of little India and therefore safe for two Indian woman travelers and a jump away from decent shopping at Bugis. Negatives: Rather expensive (168SGD for a night) and no free WIFI. 
   With half a day done, we quickly freshened up and took a Metro to Orchard Road(The prime shopping location in Singapore). Explored our way around and watched the National Day Parade as it was telecast on huge screens. A Lot of places to shop and eat. Noticed an entire floor dedicated to beauty (!!) in the Wheelock Place Mall, ranging from botox,some weird cosmetic corrections to extensive nail care and fish spas. By six pm,we rode on the MRT back to Little India and explore the place a little more. There was an Ambal Kovil (Veeramakaliamman Temple). As it was an auspicious Friday,the prasadam was elaborate enough to constitute as dinner. Ambled the streets and got back to the hotel.
  Review : Orchard Road - nothing that you haven't seen before.
                 Little India - nothing to be said, I'm an Indian,absolutely nothing  new. But a mini chennai i must say. Decent places for Indian comfort food and well within the budget!
                 Was beginning to fall in love with the infrastructure,cleanliness and easy transport of SG. So very convenient ! Kudos to their government.

An interesting  sign board at Wheelock Place on Orchard Road. :

 The Mall ION Orchard On Orchard Road :

  The deity adorned: 

   Everything is looking up again ! At wheelock Place :

Painted Wall 2

I've always dreamt of having a personal library and stacking up the collection of books stored in my dingy cupboard . Cleared out a room to re-paint the walls, buy good bookcases and get those books out. The room been my favorite since.

I would like to welcome to you to my imagination room ! Where all things art and creative are allowed and only negativity and closed minds are prohibited.

 The painting started off with a different idea,but over time and with a lot of busy days in between , it compelled me to rethink ideas and paint my mind at that moment.

I've realized it's very effective to leave work for sometime , so by the time you come back to it, it forces you to look at it in a different perspective and probably do something better than the initial idea.

Let me know what you think of it !
  

Dabbe Falls

       The post-surgery trek was inaugurated on June 1st. We decide to go to Dabbe falls, near shivamogga,  Yogi , Reddy and Murali were ready and I tried but exhausted all my options to get some girl company for the trek. Raghav randomly kept asking people if there were interested to trek,and three of his friends from HUL decided to join in ,at the last moment. We had set aside the rations, planned on the route and yogi was our designated guide, a place that seem to have been very special to him .
      The friday, June 1st saw Bangalore drenched in the pre-monsoon heavy rains and crawling traffic. Everyone stuck at different parts of the city, the probability of the trek happening seemed to be dwindling, but none of  us wanted to give up.Although, vetri's sense of direction,of having been the third to reach majestic but lost for about an hour trying to get to where we were, was hilarious. Tired from the inter-city terrible travel,slightly beaten by the city's infrastructure but greatly spirited, we boarded a bus to Sagara(past shimoga) at 12am . Reached  Sagara by 7 am, had a good breakfast ,but wasted quite a lot of time searching for buses to hosagadde. After asking around for the buses and futile attempts to hitchhike our way to hosagadde,we took a bus to kargal and an omni to the start of our trek. Quite a lethargic start at 11 am finally, made our way to gowdarre mane with help by the villagers along the way. Reached gowdarre mane to meet Manjaiaah , left our bags there and carried only the bag with our lunch (packed form sagara) . It was an exciting descend  to the falls, some tricky corners and yogi was carrying a rope on standby. We were lucky it hadn't rained heavily , so the mud wasn't very loose. Reached the bottom of dabbe falls. Magnificent ! It may not look as awe-inspiring as jog falls which is in shimoga, but it had a enticing unexplained charm  to it. Relaxing on the rocks and eating our rice bath, we watched the powerful stream of water from a visibly dangerous height pound the rocks beneath  with great force. Relished our lunch and a quick photo session , some of the guys decided to getting pounded  by the water and they did , pretty hard ! The ascent was surprisingly quick and we were at gowdarre mane by 5pm. We contemplated a lot in staying there for the night or to continue trekking towards kanoor kote and halt at doctor mane. Short of time, we decided to pay manjaiaah (500 ! ) to show us the route to kanoor village and started off. Following him was rather simple, it saved us the trouble of having to find the routes on our own. We reached Kanoor shaalae by 7:30 pm and a nearby house/cottage were generous enough to let us use their water and we did take a few vessels to use from them as well. Moderately tired but very hungry, we started cooking,Raghav and his HUL boys did an impressive job of perfectly boiling the eggs , murali and I did the vegetable cutting and some lemonade and lemony onions ! Yogi , well..did everything. Our head chef Yogi cooked us a delicious meal of egg masala (probably the first on a trek and the eggs did survive two falls and possible breaks,one in the bus journey bearing the weight of my legs and the other,raghav's brave fall) and biryani with pappad as well. The school was a luxury actually,as compared to the camping treks. We rolled out our sleeping bags and fell asleep within minutes.
     Woke up quiet lazily at about 8am , but waking up to nature and seeing vast greenery the first thing in the morning is the best morning anyone can ask for. Apart from a local bus parked near the school, the view was perfect ! Quick to make delicious lemon tea, mix puliyogare with extra roasted peanuts (YUMM), pack our sacks,  wash the vessels(raghav murali and harsh taking over an hour to scrub it ), we left kanoor school by 1030am. Rather late, but we maintained a good pace with yogi in the lead. We did lose our way a couple of times, but successfully found the right way out. It was drizzling, and the intransigent leeches started bothering us. We found the perfect place to halt, exactly seven benches for us,where we could rest our sacks ,sit and pick out our leeches and finally stand on the bench to prevent further leeches to get on. Small Joys! But it had to be bothered by the first monsoon showers that poured exactly around lunch, when we had just removed all the leeches and were munching bread slices with delicious jam on our marked benches. Went up the wrong way, and I think we missed kanoor kote. Raghav went back to the benches to pick up a stem of a plant I wanted in my garden and luckily happened to have noticed another path ,we changed track and continued on the path that ultimately led us to the village gerusoppa . After a long hike of about 6 hours , and stole three delicious mangoes from the locals, we reached gerusoppa. Took the ferry across Sharavthi river, the river was fairly abundant and a beautiful sight. Lazed around the lake a bit, freshened up(i.e., changed clothes in an auto due to lack of covered places),we continued hiking to the town to find a good hotel and get a bus back to Bangalore. With the clock ticking, we finished out dinner by about 8pm and patiently waited for buses to Bangalore. Contrary to what everyone in the hotel and about mentioned about bangalore buses, not many showed up and the ones that went by gerusoppa didn't bother stopping as they were full. With not another option left, we hired an omni at 10:30 to take us to sagara. Poor yogi had to snugly fit his 6'' 3' self in the omni, all of us were crammed for the 3 hour journey.  With a dinner pitstop(for the drivers) in between , we were at Shivamogga at 3am,completely deprived of sleep. Took the next available private bus heading to Bangalore and rather comfortable seats. Slept till we could and reached Majestic at around 9am .
   May not have been the most economical or successful trek(in terms of reaching the intermediate land marks on time) , but definitely one of the best experiences through a charming route. Thanks guys :D

Photo credits : Murali , Vetri .

Good way to spend a four day-off

The project finally got over on May 1st, so I took off Thursday and Friday, making it a 4-day weekend.
Among other things, I got some time to draw.
I was searching  for some images off the net. Copied this from some good images I found.It is an amateur attempt,but nonetheless it felt good !

Burn up, don’t Burn out

PROJ 3 :  

Burn up, don’t Burn out

    Pedaling down a greatly inclined slope with vengeance, I easily took to speeds of 50 kmph,changed the gear to the 5th ,and let the bicycle cruise its way down. The grin on my face wore off as quick as the endorphin high lasted. I encountered an evil pothole bang in the middle of road ,in an attempt to avoid it, jammed the break..only the front brake. The next thing I knew I was on the tarmac with a bleeding mouth and chipped off my two incisors.

            Good Morning fellow-smedians and welcome guests.

 Little did I know, that thanks to my insufficient knowledge about the cycle I was riding, I jammed the front break causing it to lock and the back tyre continued to rotate causing a double somersault and a hard hit to my jaw. Had to undergo two painful root canal treatments the same day , followed by ceramic root caps for the incisors that cost me a bomb. All due to my over-confidence .

Exercise may not always do you good. More often than not, due to insufficient knowledge and ignoring signs of your body complaining we tend to overdo it. A growing concern of obesity and health complication due to stressful lifestyles drive us to desperately seek exercise of any sort without completing understanding the good and most importantly the evils of it.

    I am a obsessive runner, let me rephrase, I was an obsessive runner. For the past three years, I unflinching wore my shoes at 5 am in the morning and ran till my hearts content. Gradually pushing it to limits my body complained to and I didn't pay attention. Last May, the alarm sounded, I got the harsh message of  over-exercising. I ran the 10km run in Bangalore with a subtle nagging knee pain which I continually ignored. There was no satisfaction of having finished the run in a good time as my knee was paining intolerably. The doctors diagnosed it as a meniscal tear and I had to get a surgery down to trim the tear. A minor procedure ,but the healing time took me six months. For a hyper-active person like me, it was six months of hell. Now I’m back to a better regime of balanced exercise and I would like to share the ills of over-exercising and signs to notice when you know you are overdoing it.

Exercising can  become addictive due to the physiological effects of endorphin, a hormone that makes one happy and more due to the psychological and positive physical effects.How do you know if you are over- training? The body is constantly communicating with you so all one needs to do is to learn to read its signals. If you feel energetic and charged after a workout session, you know you are doing something right. On the contrary, if you feel drained or fatigued, the body is hinting that it needs a rest.When we stop listening to our body and start thinking more is better, that is when the problem begins. There are four basic components that go in planning a workout schedule: exercise type, intensity, frequency and duration. As a rule of thumb, change/increase one component at a time and follow that schedule for a couple of weeks. But an over-enthusiastic person may increase two or more components at the same time leading to stress on the body.It is relatively easy to guess if you are over-training. If you’re hitting the snooze button often or having trouble sleeping and feeling exhausted throughout the day are two crucial signs. As important as it is to stimulate muscle building with hard exercise, it is equally important to recover with rest until the muscle is no longer sore. Over-training definitely leads to weight loss. The body starts conserving energy instead of expending. So even when you are burning more calories, it does not mean you are losing fat weight; you are only losing glycogen and precious muscle tissue. And that persistent joint ache cannot be pushed off as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), which usually goes away in a couple of days. This continuous pain either indicates poor technique or over-training.

  To emphasize, firstly,”Research” on your exercise techniques,equipment,the good or ill it has on your body, any special dietary requirements (specifically the amount of protein to be increased). and secondly, “Listen” to your body and when it complains. Drawing this to my experiences I should have known better about the disc brakes in the cycle before taking on a massive downslope and I should have payed more attention to my nagging knee pain before aggrevating it.

Balance your routine to 30-45 minutes a day, alternating aggressive workout with conditional mind-body workout to heal your mind and body. Remember the primary motivation to exercise is to stay fit and healthy and not to drastically lose weight.

Ref source : http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/dont-overdo-it/article4414582.ece

A new year.

I have been wanting to write a new year post since last month,i decided today would be apt. I turned another year older two days back and my new year starts.
I genuinely feel like I've grown up. Emotionally, intellectually and well,unfortunately geometrically as well. This feels like my teenage to adult transition,a rather late one though. My surroundings and influences have changed quite drastically and more so, to a more responsibly aware sober one.
After the unexpected happened,it feels surreal,I feel like I'm trying on my old pants after four and half years of constantly wearing new ones. It feels more peaceful, like the tides are receding, and a more calmer and structured life awaits.
I reached a point in the relationship where I couldn't recognize myself anymore, a place where I became a permeable membrane and absorbed everything, slowly adopting a new self and losing my old. I had  reached a stage of complete devaluation of self, almost helplessly begging for recognition again.
I have been through , by far in my life, the worst couple of months last year. Nothing I wanted ever happened, but I got just what I needed. A shake, violent shake, snap to reality. Something to make me believe in myself again, a reason to work on building myself from scratch. When everything looked ruined, my health,my career and my biggest support system, the chaotic anxiety that followed tortured me,I reached a point where I thought I couldn't walk again,I was ready to give up and wave the white flag.
As I lay there exhausted in the hot sun, almost lifeless, a bunch of heads gave me shade and a hand to help me get up. I thank you all. Your words healed me, gave me the strength to believe in myself again, to  be able to walk with my head held high.
Today, at a much better state, I'm marveled at the healing power of time. Time is the enemy and the friend,it's a reflection of free flowing nature of life. My difficulties seem exaggerated now, I smile at my stupidity already, I do want to reach the place, when I can look back and laugh at it. 
I want to change, for the better. I want to make this a good year,a year dedicated to building myself and keeping my loved ones closer. I have written down a number of things I want to do, a number of ways to reconnect to my old self and also adopt better ways and to learn a LOT more.
It's always change that we are scared to accept,but the sooner we accept that change is inevitable, the easier to learn a way through change. I'm looking to change, for the better.