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.

One of my favorite poems

SWIMMERS 

                   -- Louis Untermeyer

I took the crazy short-cut to the bay;

Over a fence or two and through a hedge,

Jumping a private road, along the edge

Of backyards full of drying wash it lay.

And now, the last set being played and over,

I hurried past the ruddy lakes of clover;

I swung my racket at astonished oaks,

My arm still tingling from aggressive strokes.

Tennis was over for the day -

I took the leaping short-cut to the bay.

Then the quick plunge into the cool, green dark,

The windy waters rushing past me, through me;

Filled with a sense of some heroic lark

Existing n a vigour clean and roomy.

Swiftly I rose to meet the cat-like sea

That sprang upon me with a hundred claws,

And grappled, pulled me down and played with me.

Then, held suspended in the tightening pause

When one wave grows into a toppling acre,

I dived headlong into the foremost breaker,

Pitting against a cold and turbulent strife

The feverish intensity of life.

Out of the foam I lurched and rode the wave,

Swimming, hand over hand, against the wind;

I felt the sea's vain pounding, and I grinned

Knowing I was its master, not its slave.

Back on the curving beach I stood again,

Facing the bath-house, when a group of men,

Stumbling beneath some sort of weight, went by.

I could not see the heavy thing they carried;

I only heard : 'He never gave a cry-

'Who's going to tell her?' 'Yes, and they just married-'

'Such a good swimmer, too... And then they passed,

Leaving the silence throbbing and aghast.

A moment there my frightened heart hung slack,

And then the rich, retarded blood came back

Singing a livelier tune; and in my pulse

Beat the great wave that endlessly exults.

Why I was there and whither I must go,

I did not care. Enough for me to know

The same persistent struggle and the glowing

Waste of all spendthrift hours, bravely showing

Life, an adventure perilous and gay,

And death, a long and vivid holiday.

 Makes you ponder only to conclude that don't stress it, life is short,make the most of it .
 Let me know what you liked.

Leave your workplace early ! :D

   My first job right after college saw me squirming to leave my seat when I can and get home faster. It was new and difficult to get used to a 9am-5pm(or more) job. So when I did get a chance early,I pinged the rest of my friends this poem .

Children lets leave,
to frolic in the field.
To fasten a used tyre from the tree bark,
and laugh and swing ,until it gets dark.
To go down a mighty slide,
and run up the wrong side again with immense juvenile pride.
To gyrate on the wicked merry-go round, with full speed,
Like a bound bird dying to be freed.
Lets climb the 'A" "B" and "c",
and talk about toys ,books and genie.

MUD

When do you know if you've dug into the earth enough?
Is it time to bury the chest of thoughts.
The assortment of memoirs,feelings,promises and bluff.
Should I be convinced that my heart will then be free of clots.
I tried to return my treasures to their rightful owners,
But they had long forgotten what I had soulfully guarded.
I tried to immortalize the candid whispers,
But the ephemeral  voices only faded.
Digging out the mud and burying my chest,
Seems heavier than expressed.