Trek to Kanheri Caves

Yesterday, i.e. Sunday, 20th July 2009 I along with friends from Y.E.S. visited the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It was more of an extempore trip, without much planning or ado. We decided to go, packed our bags and left. Yet, there were around 15 of us who made this trip. Personally I was looking forward to visiting the Kanheri caves the most, as I had read that there wasnt much to see in the National park in terms of Lions, tigers and other animals.

We all decided to assemble at Vikhroli Station at around 8:00 am. Most were on time, and some were late as usual. We decided to use the time to have our breakfast.

Bonny and me having our breakfast.

We then moved on to the bus stop. We thought of traveling by bus, but ended up taking ricks.

After we reached borivili, I decided to have a go at the wada paav stand. I knew we had a long journey ahead, and I was already hungry. Only Griffin and Gladvin joined me. The others decided to keep away.

The map outside Borivili national Park. We had planned to hike upto Kanheri Caves.

The beautiful sprawling national park awaits us...


Walking into the park, unaware of the long road ahead.


Moss covered walls seen from the train

Before that we decided to take a look at some of the animals. I wasnt so inclined, but all the
others were. Probably because I knew about the sorry state of the animals and had already visited the Nehru Zoological park in Hyderabad, and knew that this would never live upto those standards. Finally, considering the limited time, we settled for a train ride, and just got to see the deers.

Walking to

Leaving behind a tunnel

Off the ride, the girls dont seem to have enjoyed themselves much.

After the train ride, we hit back the long and beautiful road.


After walking for sometime, we reached a bridge over a small stream. The group didnt need an invitation to get into the water.


Bonny decided to catch some fish. The only fish available were small fry.


A little water bug that he caught.


Taking a dip in the cool stream.

After the dip, many were reluctant to leave the spot. Infact only myself and Joshua were the ones out of the water, waiting for everybody to get back on the trail. Then there was a little mutiny where some of the guys decided against going to the caves and wanted to just explore the jungles. It took some time to break the mutiny and convince everybody that the caves were worth visiting. And we could hit the road again...


Weary after the long walk.


The gang, now tired & famished, decides to squat on the road.


After some time of continuous walking, we finally made it to the foot of the hill, which had the caves. At the base of the caves, there was a map and a write up on the caves.

Exploring the first of the caves.

The biggest and the most beautiful of the viharas.

Massive moss covered rocks.


A Stupa inside the cave that had multiple viharas.


Posers forever. :)


Bonny checks out the sculptures behind the Stupa.


An inside out view... The Viharas were pretty dark, even in the bright afternoons.


Some wall sculptures


A carving of Buddha


A destroyed stupa next to an intact one. Not even sure if its a destroyed stupa. Raiders? Dacoits? Cant say.


The caves have an excellent water harvesting systems. There are tanks built all over the caves, and there are water channels along the hills that supply water to these tanks. Also the excess water in the past was drained out to the nearby Tulsi and Vihar lakes.

Next , exactly after the huge cave with viharas built in it, we came across a Chaitya which was the hugest. It had huge 20 feet statues of buddha and also a big stupa in the middle of the hall. Above is the entrance to this Chaitya.

A huge pillar that looked more decorative than supportive. This was outside a huge chaitya, probably the main prayer hall in the monastrey.

A 20 feet statue of Buddha. The most impressive in Kanheri Caves. The body was out of proportion, as can be expected sometimes in the carvings of those ages. This error in proportion was observed only in the big statue. But obviously, the bigger the work, more difficult to maintain proportions. Also, in many places, the smaller ones were replicas of this larger one. Opposite the one you see in the above picture stands an exactly carbon copy statue. To pass into the hall, you would have to pass throught these 2 bug statues that face each other.


Some more than voluptious carvings that lined the entrance.


The large Chaitya. Just being in here was a magnificient feeling. I can imagine what a peaceful atmosphere this might have been when the monks walked this placce around a couple of thousand years ago.

Some carvings on top of a pillar. Two elephants, with maybe mahouts, or maybe .. i dunno what. You figure.

The inside out view.


Me with a minature version of the 20 feet statue you saw a couple of pics up...


The main area of the caves from the other side, ie from outside the main Chaitya (prayer hall)


As we climbed higher, we got a fantabulous view of the National Park. The sun shone through the clouds, and illuminated streaks of the forest that I couldnt capture on this cellphone camera. You actually have to be in the place to experience it. This picture actually cheats the viewer of depth of feild. The forest is much farther than what it seems to be in the pic.


Between two hillocks on which the caves are built flows a little stream. There are multiple caves built in this valley too. What you see is a stream of people playing and venturing about in this little stream. The late monsoons may be the reason why it is just a trickle.

The team tired, after walking for more than 8 kms, soaking the view.

Rock cut steps led us further up the hill where there were many more Viharas.


High up in the Sky


Joshua and John look down on the passers by.


The Entrance to a Vihara (quarters where the monks reside). There were many such viharas carved into the rocky mountainside. There are 100 caves in all out here...


This looked like a rock cut Ezy chair. Maybe something that the monks used to relax in. Winson, Serena and John chill on probably one of the best places ezy chairs, as you can see the whole valley from here.

Enoch walks up rock cut steps to get higher up the hill.

Archimedes

I was reading about Archimedes today. Actually it was link after link after link that I clicked that lead me to the same. It started of with reading about fluidized bed filters. After which I started reading something on 'venturi valves', that had a mention on the page, and the the 'Archimedes screw' was mentioned which finally lead me to the page of Archimedes the great. I have read about and heard about this fellow from a very young age, like most. But I distinctly remember reading something about him in 'Tinkle'. But Most of my memories were directly linked to the 'Eureka' episode, and nothing more. But on going through the wiki page on this person, I surely must say that few surpass his acheivements.

Following are some things Archimedes discovered/invented/defined:
1) The Golden Crown.
2) The Archimedes Screw.
3) The Archimedes heat ray.
4) Rigouros explanation on the Lever principle.
5) Used infitesimals in a way similar to modern calculus.
6) Many more things in maths that is difficult to list here.

I wont write much about him, as providing this Wiki Link should suffice. Go on, read it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

Whats up in Life??

I havent been blogging for quite some time, and the reason is because I have been pretty busy lately. I have been extremely engaged with my aquarium keeping hobby also. I am working on two fishy blogs at the same time. Also have been hooked on to Mafia Wars for the last one month or so. So the cumulative effect of this is drastic reduction in my reading schedule. And secondly, in my blogging schedule. Not to forget my quite time that I haven't been having for a while now.

Anyways just posting this post to get the ball rolling on this side of my life too. Hopefully, there will be more posts on this blog in the near future.

Extreme Stress

The last few days have been very stressful for me. My MCA exams in january, followed by a very demanding project at work. I have been up all night atleast 5 times in the last week and a half. And now, bouts of sinusitis bog me down. So a tough period for me. Also one of the main reasons I haven't been blogging regularly. The other reason is my wild obsession with a long lost hobby. A hobby that deserves a separate blog. More on that soon...

Tiring exams

My MCA exams have quickly come up around the corner, and the tough days are back. No reading for pleasure and no writing for sometime. Will be back ASAP.

The New year comes with a bang!!

Well, 2009 is surely gonna be something of a year. It started with a bang! OK, not in a sense but in a very literal sense. I had 2 punctures in a span of around 5 hours. The first one, a couple of hours before midnight on the 31st, when I was leaving from office. That was when I found my front tyre gone kaput. And around 5 hours down the line, at 3:00 am, my rear tyre tube valve gave away. Now i don't know what the probability of this happening is, but im sure that it is extremely small. Anyways hoping that this year doesn't have such unwanted bangs in store ahead. Rather hoping for a year of positive bangs, if you know what that means.

Sea of Poppies - Book Review (9/10)

The Sea of Poppies had a hype surrounding it, when it was released, obviously because it was the work of Amitav Ghosh, one of the most acclaimed writers of Indian English Literature. His other books that I read were simply superb. And I knew that I could trust Ghosh to deliver this time too. The Sea of Poppies was nominated for the Man Booker, but sadly it lost out to the White Tiger. The White Tiger is an equally captivating book, but the vastness of the Sea of Poppies, its language, the research that has gone into the book, the wide variety of characters, the story, the exciting moments all scream and shout that the Sea of Poppies deserved this award more.

The book, the first of the trilogy that Ghosh is working on, is set in India, in the first half of the 19th century, just around before the opium wars. It has an immensely interesting amalgam of extremely diverse characters from diverse backgrounds. Deeti: the runaway sati candidate and murderer of her mother-in-law, Zachary: the son of a freed slave, then a carpenter, now a sailor, Raja Neel Haldar: A rich linguist of a zameendar, now convicted of forgery, Bhairon singh: A primary evil antagonist and a bodyshopper, Captian Chillingworth: A controlled opium addict and Captain of the Ibis, Mr. Burnham, . These characters lay the foundation of the book. The story is fiercely interconnected, more than some of his earlier books, and can be said to be slightly complex. But yet, it does not fail to enthrall.

The story is divided into three books. Land, River, Sea. The divisions make sense, though they are primarily based on just a couple of characters, Kalua and Deeti (my opinion). The story, largely, is about a journey that many of the above mentioned characters take across the black waters (on the Ibis), something that was considered taboo and forbidden for the Indians in those days. Some because they want to, some because they are forced to, some because they have to. The amount of research that Ghosh has put into this book is astounding. Ships, sailors, the Laskar language & lingo, history, etc. etc.Phenomenol. It is very difficult to imagine how one person could write a book like this. Initially, I found the Laskar lingo very irritating, and there were many lines I chose to pass through, just because I couldn't decipher the language. It is a strange combination of English and Hindi. I know both languages, yet I found it tough. I wonder how people who do not know Hindi would manage. But then there are just a couple of characters who speak that way in the book. So not much of an issue. On the contrary it just adds to the spice.

The book is more like a story in progress and has no end. I guess it would be more like a three part novel than a trilogy. Something like the LOTR. Ghosh hasn't fixed the no. of volumes that he would write to complete the story. As of now it is 3. But this may turn out to be one of the biggest epics of modern Indian literature. Truly brilliant, this book deserves a 9/10.

Bone - The Graphic Novel Review - (7/10)

I first read about Bone in the newspaper, and was pretty impressed with the character that Jeff Smith had created. Fone bone was cute, and well drawn. The reviews for the book were good, and I decided that I would want to buy at least one of the books from the series. My online search for the book began within few hours, and soon I had some price quotes in front of me. But what caught my attention was a 1300 page full epic volume, that had all the 9 Bone books in one. I ordered, and it cost me Rs.1800.

The book is a story about three loony tunes type characters, who are out from boneville, a town where bonelike-creatures live. All three are of them are cousins, and resemble bones. They are thrown out of their town, because Phonevile Bone , a serial bungling cunning opportunist, messes up in town, and causes the people of Bonveville a lot of pain. Anyways, now they are on a journey in a valley filled with rat-creatures that are monsters that eat anything that moves. The story is has been inspired from the Lord of the Rings, for the adventure that then unfolds has all elements that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy had. But Jeff Smith has managed to infuse a lot of comic element into the series, for there are parts where I split my sides laughing. Jeff Smith himself said that his motive was to combine Bugs Bunny & the LOTR, and come up with something that is 'Bone'.

It took me a couple of days to go through 1300 pages and this itself is a testimony to the quality of the Graphic Novel. The adventure has many ups and downs, wonderful characters, supernatural tones, dollops of humour and some crappy fantasy concepts that put me off for a while. I soon downloaded the pirated color version on torrents, and am planning to buy the color version too. Overall, it was a very interesting book, something I would recommend you to go read. Ill give it a 7/10

Following are some random pages from Bone.

The White Tiger - Book Review (8/10)

I picked up "The White Tiger" at crosswords randomly off the shelf, months before it won, or even was nominated for the Booker. Honestly, the title of the book and the cover attracted me more than the plot summary at the back of it. I had no biases, as this was a debut novel of an unknown novelist, and no reviews. I usually search for the name of the author I am reading on the net, and try to learn some stuff about him. But Adiga had hardly any net presence. No pictures of him on the net too. Was I right in picking up this book, I asked myself diffidently.

As I started reading it, I found it to be awkward. The letters to the Chinese president seemed stupid, and the book was starkly different from other books I read, at least in the beginning. I never expected this book to be about a poor poor man from a rural rural village. It took me by surprise. But the story certainly did not disappoint me. It was indeed enjoyable. Especially for an Indian reader, who understands this country from living within its bowels, this book is a joyride. Adiga wonderfully manages to help the reader fall in love with a character, who has evident villainous traits and indulges in despicable doings. The cold steel-like calmness that Balram demonstrates, the insensate way in which he murders, without flinching even a flyspeck muscle, the lack of conscience that makes him immune to regret, are some of the few characteristics in the protagonist that Adiga has woven with great skill, considering this being his first novel. The book also manages to touch some really strong themes, especially that of the vast disparity that exists in the lifestyles of the Indians. The same India, where there are millionaires rolling in money on one side and debt ridden farmers committing suicide by the dozens on the other. Some of the metaphors that Adiga uses are brilliant. Overall I loved this book, and this would be one of the books I would look forward to reading again.

About the Booker that TWT won, after reading "the Sea of Poppies" , I felt it easily deserved the Booker more than "the White Tiger". Actually there was almost no comparison. I haven't read the other nominations, so I cant comment about them. But still, for a gripping tale, a theme usually avoided and a book well written, ill give "The White Tiger" an 8/10.

You are here - Book Review (5.5/10)

You are here, by Meenakshi reddy Madhvan is another book I completed alongside with "Sea of Poppies". (I guess I should be done with SOP by next weekend. I'm taking my time and relishing it ). This book, I think should be classified as modern chick-lit. Before telling you more about the book, let me tell you more about the author. Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan is a 25 something journalist, and also the author of the famous blog, "The Compulsive Confessor" (http://thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com/) Well, if you have read her blog, you will know what to expect of this book. I rarely drop books, specially the ones I have purchased. The only book that I have dropped till date is ignited minds, by Dr.Abdul Kalam. The book was an absolute pain. Though YAH started strongly with the wordclot fundas and stuff, I almost gave it a drop after reading through a few more pages. I felt like I was reading the Compulsive confessor blog at the beggining.

The story took too long to take off, and the protagonist kept spewing out thoughts of her own, thoughts that read good only on blogs. It got awfully boring after some time. But once the story started to pick up, there was something in it. Still at intervals, the author starts blabbering about her own thoughts on a subject. Sometimes it is nice, but many a times I was just put off.

But this was one book that was quite different from the others. It showed me the existence of a completely different world, a society, where girls behave like sluts and smoke and drink like they were adjusting their bra strap. The kind of life that the protagonist has, was completely immoral, derogatory and something conservatives like me would abhor. The language is ekdum 'aaj-ka-teen-gal-english' types in some conversations and few parts. This again put me off completely. Ofcourse, I couldnt expect less from a 'Chick-lit' novel. The overall writing style was good though.

I personally think that the author has written a heavily autobiographical story, with very shallow research (If any). I dont think she can write on varied themes and the chik-lit feel that her book gave, put me off enough to give her next book (if there is any) a miss. Im waiting to see whether she can write something completely different from her first book.

The bad part was the ending. I didnt personally like it. Found it flat. Overall the story was OK. There were some humorous moments though, that tickled my funny bone enough, to let me give this book a 5.5/10.

Keep of the Grass - Book review (4/10)

Lately, I have been picking up Indian fast reads, primarily because I can relate to them more (they are more like the life I live, the life that I have seen), and I can wrap them off in a day. So I try and slip in one quick book alongside with my regular novel, which takes more than a few weeks (considering I read just 25 pages a day). My Mdiv exams are on my head, and that’s really left me cramped with respect to hobby reading. Anyways, "Keep of the Grass" by Karan Bajaj, was one such quick read. This book got my attention, as it was compared to the other IIT & IIM novels in an article online.

Id call it a book of Joints, Grass, Sloshed students, marijuana, Soul Searching, IIM pressures, alchohol, confusion and a bit of India. Throughout the book, the protagonist (Ratan) & his close buddy are just pot-smoking themselves to their IIM graves. This story is about a young NRI bloke from Wall street, who is affected to such an extent by a remark by a one-night-stand-companion, that he decides to go back to India & do his MBA at the IIM. Actually, the remark just unplugs the deep pressure already existing within. Thus starts the tale of a IIM student. Nothing mentionable about the story. Its basically OK. Too much of grass actually spoilt it all. Decent writing style, considering the genre. The protagonist was way to confused and I was almost frustrated with this aspect of his character. The ending was OK again, and the storyline overall was again OK. There were some nice moments in the book, and the parts where Ratan & co. travel to parts of India are probably the Highs of the book for me. Also the title of the book becomes clear at the end of the book. Thats one part I liked. Overall the book didnt work for me that great. One of the books that I would not remember for too long. I'll give it a 4/10.