Digitally Exploring the world

The One Goal of All Nature by Swami Vivekananda The grandest idea in Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have generalised into four viz., those of work, love, psychology and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends into the other. But according to the type which prevails we name the divisions. It is not that you cannot find a man who has no other faculty than that of work, nor that you cannot find men who are more than devoted worshippers only, nor that there are not men who have more than mere knowledge. These divisions are made in accordance with the type or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in a man. We have found that, in the end, all these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same goal. I have already tried to point out that goal. It is freedom as I under...

With mom visiting and with no real breaks in the last few months I was itching to head out of the chaos of the city and booked a nice treehouse that I found out while looking up the web. So on a nice cloudy morning last Sunday I took my good old Alto for its first long spin out of the city this year. Hit the first stretch of great road (Nice Toll Road) soon after home and with the music turned on it was a good beginning. The toll road with it wide open stretches where you are sure that there won't be any incoming traffic wrong side of the road is a dream drive . However I did feel the need for speed with my sturdy old 800c Alto taking time to pickup speed but nevertheless it did cross the 100kmp mark soon ! We ripped through almost negligible traffic and we were in Mysore in flat 2hrs where we had a stopover for breakfast at Kamat. We then passed through some good green stretches specially once we crossed Gundulpet into the Muthanga Forest Reserve that lies across both the...

Watched Saina win her 3rd title in 3 weeks and who is also currently ranked 3rd in the world. I don't remember last when an Indian Individual Singles player was given such an outstanding support in a foreign land. The entire stadium was a buzz routing for her. A tough match nevertheless but she is now unbeaten in 3 weeks at world level , which is rarely heard of by an Indian athlete. If she continues improving and peaking at the right level who knows we might see a new Olympic Champion at the London Olympics.. I wonder how many Indians even switched on the TV to watch her play on a sunday afternoon ..

Another classic song ..great voice and lyrics..

For those who have read his book "Man's search for Meaning"

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...