Digitally Exploring the world

Before heading out to Arunachal I spent a week in Calcutta working remotely. Met a few folks some of whom were surprised and appalled at me trying to go on my solo backpacking trips . A few even asked me whether I was trained in some kind of self defense (Karate) or carried Pepper Spray :) With my inner line permit already taken care of by applying at the Arunachal Govt Dept at Delhi I was all set. I took off from Calcutta to Dibrugarh and went around to Pasighat -YingKiong- Along - Menchuka - Along - Diparijo- Ziro - Itanagar - Guwahati - and back ! My blog posts here: Amazing Arunachal -1 : Dibrugarh-Pasighat-Yingkiong-Along   Amazing Arunachal -2 : Along-Menchuka-Diparijo-Ziro-Itanagar-Guwahati   Pictures here: Ziro/Along Yingkiong Menchunka

Along-Mechuka Woke up and walked upto the bus station to get the share jeep to Menchuka. It wasn't a very good start to the day when I saw a motorcyclist being mauled down by a sumo and people trying to get in touch with emergency service and non came for almost 45mins I was there. Later heard the biker had succumbed to his injuries on the road itself. I tried to put the morbid thoughts behind as we started our journey through those long and tough winding roads, one mistake and one could go missing forever! There were bunch of passengers some who got down on the way and some who went all the way to Menchuka. We stopped for nice hot breakfast on the way and a hot cup of tea in the biting cold tasted out of the world. I spoke to some of the passengers in the jeep and again was thought of as a researcher, one of them mentioned a nice guest house run by a buddhist there. The journey took about 8hrs over the winding roads and huge rainforest like mountains and rivers and towards the ...

Dibrugarh-Pasighat-Yingkiong Landed at Dibrugarh and headed straight to the ferry ghat.  Was told the last ferry left at 4:15pm and just as I landed there in the nick of time, figured I was at the wrong ghat ( BogiBeel ) and the ferry's didn't go to Pasighat directly and wouldn't find a place to stay where the ferry was headed.  With no other way out, headed back to town to find a place for the night. Woke up early and took the ferry from Mazin Ghat , filled with passengers, vehicles, live stock and anything one can imagine to Pasighat and then onto a share jeep. Pasighat  ,is a small little town surrounded by hills and a few scattered settlements. With 4hrs to kill before the bus to Yingkiong , I grabbed some food and dumped my backpack in the same restaurant and walked around town. After tea, I walked upto the bus station to find an ancient rickety old bus waiting that was christened "Yingkiong Queen " . A distance of 180kms takes close to 12hrs on these lo...

Speech Text

Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going -- Two simple happenings That got entangled. -Kozan Ichikyo

Heard this old classic after a very long time ....

Invictus : OUT of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my SOUL. - William Ernest Henley This poem inspired Mandela while at prison. A new movie by the same name ad directed by Client Eastwood is going to be out soon ,here is the trailer ..

I was sitting around at home this Saturday and feeling a bit low with the mind and its wandering and pushed myself to walk across to the college campus at IIMB to attend the monthly guest lectures, this time the talk was by Malathi Holla and came back in a very different spirit. One has to meet Malathi to even know what an indomitable spirit and positive spirit outlook can do to oneself and to people around you . Malathi was paralyzed neck down when she was a year old and after 2yrs of electric shock treatment that helped a little in improving her condition she was admitted into to a residential school for the differently abled in Chennai where she spent 15yrs of her life. She then came back to Bangalore to study further. Her father ran a small udupi hotel in Bangalore and she was one among the four. Being differntly abled in India is in itself one of the biggest challenge for such people , and how many times would someone like me even think of how tough it is for someone to cross ...

This is so very true, the lost art of letter writing.. I don't remember when I last picked up a pen and wrote a letter to someone and posted it .. I however, still do have some old letters that dad wrote those days when there was no email, yes there was such a time only a little while ago !!

Woke up at 4:45a.m on a perfect Sunday morning and headed(drove down ,didn't have the stamina to cyle it:)) to Tumkur Road , about 30kms from home for participating in my first cylothon race. I hadn't trained at all for this race and hadn't cycled long distances for more than a year but decided to sign up for the long 50kms race in the amauter category. The weather was just perfect for cycling after heavy showers the previous night and another positive was that the race distance had been reduced to 36kms because of traffic hold up issues. My aim was not to race but to just complete the distance. In all my previous long distance hauls, some of which were longer, was more at a leisurely pace and didn't really need to think of a completion time but this time around things were a little different ! I kept going at a steady pace and then stopped for a water break at the 18km rounadabout and thats when I felt my right leg cramp as I got back to cycling.Two of us (another...

Here are some pics from the road trip to Goa last week, most of which was rained out... Some more pics here

Read about Patrick Swazye's demise today and that took me back to May 1991. Me and my sister were having summer vacation at school and had picked up the movie 'Dirty Dancing' from the rental shop and had enjoyed the movie and were also hooked to the music ,and ofcourse not to mention Patrick . The next morning (21st May) we heard about Rajiv Gandhi's assasination. That mean we were stuck at home for the next few days with only the movie and spent the days , watching it again and again :) Here's one of my favourite songs from the film and I also took out the dusty Audio CD from the rack to take me further back in time.. Here's a HD verson of the song

Here's my first attempt at creating a movie using Picasa Movie Maker from pics taken during my backpacking trip across Egypt and Turkey .

I traveled across turkey by bus from Istanbul to the Western ,Central and East-Central locations for 2 weeks. Turkey, with its population being 98% Islamic , has separated religion from the state and is quite westernized after the transformation started once the Ottoman rule ended. Istanbul , with its old mosques ,road side eats out, cobble stoned streets and cosmopolitan crowd was fun to just be part of and walk around. I spent a few days here and simply enjoyed walking around the old parts of Istanbul (Blue Mosque,Haphia Sophia ,Top Kapi Palace and walking around the narrow streets all the way to the Galata Bridge ) and on another day crossing over to Istanbul University all the way to Taksim and Eminou ferry dock . On the first day at Ramzan ,the area around the mosques had a different buzz with more food stalls , benches and as the sun set ,it slowly had a huge gathering of families seated together breaking their fast, travelers, passersby and live music at some places. Cana...

My trip was unplanned but did have some rough plan wanting to do the Nile Valley (Cairo-Luxor-Aswan-Abu Simbel) by road before I started . Cairo The vacation started with a bit of a twist with a missed connecting flight from Istanbul to Cairo and then desperately trying to get in touch with an ex-colleague Abed , who was suppose to meet me at Cairo and wasn't aware of the missed flight. The computer that I found at the airport lounge had a Turkish keyboard and Turkish windows installation and all my attempts to get my email account to work failed, finally after hours ,I just asked someone with a laptop to let me use it for just a few mins to drop an e-mail. I reached Cairo at 2a.m. in the morning and took a taxi to the hostel and was surprised to see quite a few shops open people moving around. Abed called the hostel early morning and with only 3hrs of sleep, we drove to the Ramses station to book the train tickets for the sleeping train to Aswan that Night. We then drove down to ...

One of my favourite poem's that I found on youtube .. Nothing more apt for the two great champs !!

I left home late Saturday evening with heavy rains coming down, picked up a few friends on the way and we headed to Fireflies, outskirts of Bangalore for an all night Guitar Concert by the GuitarGurus of India. Fireflies is about 30kms from the city and as heavy rain pounded , we headed out with good music playing in the car stereo and beautiful tree lined roads but poor visibility. Fireflies is located amongst lush green trees with a small open air amphitheater. The venue was totally dry when we reached there,it hadn't rained there !! The guitar gurus from India were already performing , we were a little late. The first few performances was of the pure sound of acoustic guitar. After a bit it started to pour and and we took out our umbrellas (we were prepared since it had been raining in the city) as we heard some incredible music under the cloudy skies, a different experience to cherish. The sound changed drastically from Acoustic to Electric as the night progressed . A won...

Thought of the day as I look back and forward to this journey... To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Came across this beautiful and well made film about a successful and tough expedition to the top of the world . The team included Erik Weihenmayer , who became the first blind person to conquer Everest and makes one wonder whether the sighted have more fears to conquer.. <a href="http://www.joost.com/33l83kf/t/Farther-Than-the-Eye-Can-See">Farther Than the Eye Can See</a> This is the first HDTV footage of Mount Everest ..