Around the world...

Just about a week back, someone asked me how many countries have you visited till date?
It was only after that I started counting and here I list them all in order.
Jan 2004, Bangkok- This was my first visit abroad and whats amazing abt this is that long back, maybe 10 years ago, I met mom's friend who apparently saw me for the first time that in Jan 2004, I will travel out of India for the first time and that I should remember her words when it actually happens.....It was only when I was waiting to board, that I suddenly remembered her words and till date, I keep wondering how accurately she had told me abt the first trip.
Oct 2005 - First trip to Europe, Amsterdam. Same time halted in Zurich, Switzerland for a brief period.
March 2006 - Amsterdam, Hilversum, Naarden, Netherlands
April 2006 - Paris, France
May 2006 - Bangkok, Thailand
Oct 2006 - Antwerpen, Belgium
Nov 2006 - Cologne, Germany
Jan 2007 - Liverpool, Manchester, London, UK
Feb 2007 - Barcelona, Spain
May 2007 - Berlin, Germany
June 2007 - Brussels, Belgium
Oct 2007 - Luxembourg
Nov 2007 - Paris - France, Rome - Italy, Vienna - Austria. Also halted in Zurich, Switzerland
Aug 2008 - Singapore
Oct 2008 - Shanghai, China and Hongkong.
These are the places visited till date. Look fwd to explore more countries in the future. Btw, to answer my friend's Q, I have visited 15 countries till date. Still pending in my wishlist are US, Dubai, Japan and Australia.

MCC (Malnad Cuisine and Culture)

This Oct, my brother-in-law got married in coastal Karnataka, place called Kumta that is close to Gokarna and Murudeshwar. It was a welcome break for both of us to get rid of busy schedules for atleast a week.
The girl’s family had organized a Yakshagaana show the previous evening for all of us. The hall was completely packed with people and I was watching the show for the first time in my life. It was abt “Jambhavati Kalyana”, how Krishna loses Shamantaka mani and goes in search of it and encounters “Jaambhavanta”, teaches him a lesson while recovering the Mani and end up getting married to his daughter, Jambhavati. Three people were stationed on the stage – one for singing and explaining, one for beating drums for female character and one beating the drum for male character. The beat used for female characters is very gentle, slow and mild while the beats used for men are more loud and fast. Eyes are the most important feature for describing various emotions and the artists gave full justice to the characters they portrayed using the right expressions.

It was worth watching each and every move displayed. It was much more entertaining than watching any bollywood movie. I sincerely appreciate the talent of these people and I hope to get more chance to see such kind of programmes.
Another unforgettable thing abt this wedding would be the food prepared at the groom’s place during reception. The entire food was prepared using firewood in a traditional way and I must say that the taste of the food is definitely tastier, than the food prepared using LPG. Being a flavourist, I can vouch for it and can give a detailed explanation to it.
Some of the delicacies from this region includes – an appetizer prepared using buttermilk, with tempering of cumin seeds and ajwain leaves, mango pickle (prepared using small whole green mangoes), kashaaya ( prepared by boiling coriander seeds, cumin powder with water and jaggery and added milk before serving) – truly gives a refreshing experience, green mango rasam and saasve – prepared using grated cucumber, coconut and yoghurt and tempered with mustard seeds and red chilli are just a few examples.
After enjoying all desi cuisines and culture, I had to pack off immediately to go to Shanghai – to experience a totally different culture and cuisine.. I will soon find time to update the blog.

Hello Singapore

Recently I got a chance to visit Singapore for 10 days for a training workshop. I wasn’t really in my usual enthusiastic mode, due to work pressure.. I had to complete some line trials in our factory before departing to S’pore and barely got 2 days to pack off. Three of us were to go to S’pore in the same flight. On Sunday- 27th July, it was a bloomy day and was raining slightly. Fearing that there would be heavy rains, I left home quite early and my spouse was kind enough to drop me at the airport. The whole process got finished so fast that I reached the gate almost 2 hrs before time. I got a chance to roam around the renovated airport and started reading a book. We landed in S’pore by 7.30 pm and reached hotel by about 8.30 pm. We were too tired to go out for dinner. So I ordered food in my room only. I got a first hands experience on the vegetarian food. It smelt a little different than normal- probably the food was cooked in sesame oil..
Next day after a sumptuous breakfast, met up with old colleagues from Australia, Thailand and China – started chatting about the recent happenings in our company. The conversation lasted till the time we reached office in Woodlands, almost an hour’s drive from the hotel.After the training, I planned to extend my stay for a project and met a college friend over the weekend. The thought of meeting her kept me motivated and charged throughout the training. Over the weekend, we covered almost all places in S’pore except Sentosa. Singaporeans have a distinct English accent one cannot miss… Ok la, I go with you.. The taxi drivers are very helpful and it is very easy to go around places..I did manage to do a lot of shopping, that on the day of departure, I wasn’t sure if I had exceeded my luggage limit, but somehow managed to squeeze in everything in one bag. Not that Singapore is the best place for shopping, but I required retail therapy to get rid of my stress and chill out..During my next visit, I hope to discover some more interesting things abt this place..

Driving in Mumbai

Learning to drive in Mumbai is not that difficult and even getting a license is not that difficult if it gets done through a driving school. All it takes is spending half an hour each day for learning the lessons, half day to get LLR and one full day in the RTO office to get DL. This is considering that the driving school persons will help you skip the massive queue lined up to sign in front of the officer before and after taking the driving test. The driving test depends on the mood of the officer taking the test. The officer has a really challenging job to do. The test is conducted for a group by one officer and each group consists of at least 8 – 10 people. The officer is supposed to ask each person ion the group to drive for at least half a km while testing the person on his driving skills. If the officer-in charge is tired or stressed out only 2-3 people in the group gets the test and rest are given license without even a test. Generally it’s the girls who are chosen to get the actual test and I was happy I got to drive for at least 100 metres, else I would have felt the guilt of getting license without driving.

Glimpse of Mumbai Traffic

The real challenge starts after getting the license and when one has to drive on potholed roads, with the never declining traffic amidst autos, trucks, buses and other vehicles. Its even worse, when there is a sudden bottle neck, raining profusely or when one has drive through elevated roads and curves. Imagine the situation when one has to pass through more than 3 or 4 hurdles mentioned above while driving. Some of them don’t even have the patience to wait for the green light at a traffic signal. It’s only after practicing hard for at least a year, one can become comfortable driving in the city… As for me I am still in the learning and practicing stage though I have got my DL almost 6 months back. I hope I can practice more and get adjusted to driving independently here soon.

A small update

Nothing exciting is happening right now to blog... I'm looking fwd to update my blog on the following topics

• Driving experience in Amchi Mumbai (thinking of it makes me tired)
• Singapore trip
• Ratnagiri visit with friends

Watch out for these in a few week's time.

Adieu Bangalore

I have been staying in Garden city for more than a month now and now when i have got used to the culture, weather, traffic culture (bling!!) the time has come to go back to my city.
The first 2-3 weeks was aweful from all angles - work pressure, work place, city traffic and even weather - I hate to get drenched in rain. . At workplace some people treated my like an alien, some didnt want to co-operate because they were not used to doing anything other than routine job. I hated to get cheated by Rickshaw drivers who would simply charge me 50 bucks for a 5 minute ride. Motorists on mg road gave me a weird look, because i was walking on the pedestrian lane.... coz' its supposed to be a motorist lane. To add to my woo- the bus driver didnt pick me up one day and I had to take a vehicle from another office and reached office 2 hrs late.... Phew!!
Most of my time was gone in wondering, how am I going to spend 6 weeks here.

Two colleagues came to assist me in a project after 2 weeks and thats when I started venturing out in the city. Lalbagh was amazingly beautiful, mango exhibition was quite interesting. I would wonder how people simply gobble up gobi manchurian at Udipi restaurants. I too tried this "manchuri" and it tastes superb!! We went around to different malls - none of them crowded like in M'bai. Two days off from my work place gave me time to breathe and admire the city. The city was so much green, so many gardens and pleasant weather. It was nice to wake up to the call of cuckoo early in the morning, observe squirrels and monkeys playing around with a hot cup of tea.
Slowly people in my office started smiling at me like I was a human being. Soon, I had learnt the tactic of handling people if I need to get my work done.
Colleagues would call me up in the morning to make sure I didnt miss the bus, driver in the evening wouldnt mind waiting for 10 - 15 minutes to drop me home.
On the last day of working in office, I was amazed when a person gave me a pack of biscuits and offered a cup of coffee, coz he knew I had skipped lunch to complete a lot of work.
I am not sure if I had changed or people had changed, but both of us had certainly changed the way of looking at each other and this helped me in getting used to the place and culture. I will surely miss working in this place, more than that I am super excited to get back home to my family.
Moving to B'lore will no longer be a challenge for me......
Maybe I should explore moving to another new city after some time (definetely not before one year atleast) to learn new culture, food and behaviour of people

Mumbai to Satara...

View of Satara city from Ajinkyataara Hill
I am blogging after a long time..…. blame my busy work schedule , or my laziness or both, nevertheless here is another trip overview… On Jan 26th our small group of friends decided to spend a weekend in one of our friend’s place in Satara.
A small intro abt Satara – It’s a district abt 4 hrs away from Mumbai and though not as popular as the other cities like Pune, Nagpur, it has got its own charm and we realized it after visiting this place.
Our journey started a day earlier in the evening straight from office. We met at Vashi, parked out vehicle there and started the journey in a TT, after breaking coconut and offering a small prayer. On the way, we picked up a few more friends from Poona, who were kind enough to get us all home-made food for dinner. After polishing away every bit of it – the fun part started.
Mr and Mrs VK had prepared some interesting games and they started off with a game called Telepathy. This involves a unique telepathy between two people A and B. The group decides to tell A a word – can be anything from air, water, space etc and person B recognizes the correct word without any doubts, however complex the word is…. It was interesting to solve the technique…I will not write it here, cos I will need it perhaps somewhere else..
It was past midnight when we reached our friend’s place. His family was very hospitable and they were kind enough to keep the beds ready for all of us and all we had to do was just crash down… Early next morning, my spouse volunteered to warm some water by lighting firewood. One group had the privilege to take bath in this water, while some had to manage with water from geyser. By 9.00 we were all ready and started off in the bus to a place called Ajinkyataara.

The TT stopped at the foot of the hillock and our friend recommended us all to trek all the way up the hillock. What looked like a 30 minute hike took us almost 2 hrs to go up and we enjoyed Misal Pav there on top of the Ajinkyataara hill. The view of city was beautiful from that point and the weather was absolutely perfect. From there we went to a place near a stream, found a suitable place to cook food. The lunch menu comprised of Bhakri ( rotis made from Jowar) Baingan Bharta (Coal roasted Egg plant mashed with added selective spices), rice, kadhi (prepared from buttermilk and chickpea flour) and some yummy fresh jalebis. The guys took care of heating firewood and somebit of cooking, while the girls completed the cutting, cooking and finishing the cooking… While food was being prepared we played some group games – hitting the ball, badminton. The food prepared on charcoal wood tasted great… The flavour of the eggplant after cooked on firewood was something really intesting. The Papad prepared on the hot charcoal simply tasted superb…

From there we started off to another plave to take a look at 100’s of windmills. After taking pictures there, we went to a place called Sajjangad fort to enjoy the sunset. We had to climb abt 300 steps to reach the top of the fort and spent good time there.

In the evening we had a campfire on the terrace and got good chance to interact with the entire family of our friend and also played some interesting games…The next day too we ventured out in a different direction and stopped by a water body to warm the food.. The josh to prepare the entire course of meal on firewood had diminished. We’d rather spend time in playing games… There was a game on ‘ how well do you know ur partner and we managed to win the game marginally beating our nearest competitor… What made us lose points was a Q on my favourite fruit and I said Orange ( it was actually water-melon) My spouse guessed it right, but I messed up.I don’t know how it skipped out of my mind, inspite of this we were able to win the game.
From there we went back to our friend's place packed up and started back to Mumbai. On the way back, we shared good memories of the trip. Overall the trip was excellently managed.
We were almost 10 people, with a small girl. There was no messing up on anything - time of food, planning of places and even games - everything was executed to perfection. I would attribute this successful trip to good planning, good team work, excellent co-ordination between all members... Kudos to us all and hope to have more excursions in this way!!