My nth attempt at maintaning a continuous blog...
Borra Caves, near Vizag
This is now turning into a photo blog, I guess. Had been to Vizag for one my colleague's marriage and had gone on a tour of the nearby tourist spots-Borra caves, which was my first real cave (fictional ones being a lot in three investigators/tom sawyer-huck finn from my childhood). It turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax - the cave smelled of bat droppings, and was stuffy and sweaty. There was a lot of water dripping about and there were quite a few spectacular stalactites and stalacmites. This view was definitely worth the sweaty two hours which we spent inside the caves.
There was a Shiva temple, deep inside and high up in the cave. The experience of walking up(rather down) a spindly staircase on thin air was a bit unnerving. The caves did provide a lot of opportunities for me try my low light photography - what I really missed was a tripod(was always running around trying to find props for the camera). Andhra Toursim has definitely done a good job in illuminating the interiors, but it does look a bit unnatural at places.
Some bit of info about the opening you are seeing: the caves were discovered accidentally by a tribal cowherd when one of his cows fell down the opening into the cave. The British, who had been busy building a railroad on top of the cave, investigated the case of the missing cow, surveyed and documented the caves. The actual railroad is still in use above the caves.I would be scared to go on it -its so hollow inside and still things are all fine...Life is indeed a Miracle.
'Feel Like God' - goes the tagline. Even though I had decided long before seeing the ad, the ad did make me feel good. Yes - all ye faithful readers of blog, I am the owner of a Bajaj Avenger, my first Motorbike, and a cruiser. All gleaming chrome and contrasting black, the vehicle would be my steed for quite some time, I believe.
None of the people I know, believed me when I said that I am going to buy Avenger. Not even my parents, my colleagues and my friends. It finally happened today and I have ridden close to 70 km on the first day.
The bike feels solid and stable. It does attract some attention when going on the road, but alas! only from men.. When going on the road, a guy riding a HeroHonda splendor slows up to me (you see, for the first 1000 km, you are advised to ride the bike at 40-45 kmph, and me being the safety guy, was 'cruising' along and 39.66 kmph) and asks, 'Kitna mileage deta hai bhai?'. I replied that I am coming back just after the taking the vehicle and I am yet to test its mileage. Then the guys goes on and I am joined by a couple on a Fiero and the guy asks about the on road price which I faithfully answer. The funniest thing was when the priest at the temple (around 18-19 years of age), asks me about the technical specs of the bike before doing the pooja for the bike.
Will post a picture of it soon...meanwhile feast your eyes on the website at: Avenger(warning: heavy flash loaded website - for the lean browsers checkout Hindu - Having some photos and a nice review.)
Naa...it was just Australia losing a test match to England.Not really the end of an era, but I did enjoy watching England close out the match keeping the pumped up Bret lee and Share Warne at bay. Was expecting Flintoff to close out the match but Giles turned out to be the unlikely hero.
Why do we always root for the underdogs? Has it got to with me being a middle class south Indian, who is always taught that being arrogant is sinful, pride comes before fall etc.? or is it a more universal feeling? readers answer please...
Watched yet another rerun of Lagaan on Sony TV. By now, I probably know each scene, but still found the movie interesting.the feel good factor in the movie coming from the underdogs winning and on top of that packing off the British...
On an unrelated note, watched Bride and Prejudice - a nice enjoyable movie - maybe because of the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai and Peeya Rai Choudhuri (I was a bit cross with the director for wasting the wonderful Indira Varma in a totally insignificant role). Not sure if all the Punjabi moms out there are like Mrs.Bakshi ("I will end up living in that rotten house, full of spinsters with no grandchildren."). I am surprised that none of the progressive women's liberation groups protested against the movie - Resident Indian women are depicted in the movie as human beings just waiting to get married or be romanced off their feet - no career aspirations, no further thoughts.
Posting this from the comfort of home - have become one satisfied customer of BSNL Dataone. when these guys say its a 256 kbps connection, it is a 256 kbps connection - I effortlessly get download speed of 30KBps, which when compared to my earlier Hathway cable internet service, is just too good. There was a small hitch in configuring the connection though - the crux of the matter being that, to connect to Dataone, you need to create a PPPoE connection, over your existing LAN connection (which in win XP would say that,it is having limited or no connectivity). Initally, I tried to connect after disabling the LAN connection and the PPPoE connection errored saying 'The computer at the other end is not responding'. Tried calling up customer support, who say that I would have to click THE icon on my desktop which reads BSNL Dataone, and after putting in my username and password, would connect me to their excellent broadband service. This is one aspect, which would need serious improvement, for dataone to become the Internet service it expects to grow into. Finally, after a reboot and various combinations later, I lucked out and got connected. and before I forget, one more thing, when you use the connection for reasonable amounts of time, the modem becomes seriously hot(I mean the temperature, I haven't become such a nerd yet), so better to have some air circulation going around (my ceiling fan works admirably well in keeping the modem cool); have heard from my friends that the modem might stop working if its too hot.
That's it for now. Ciao....<Yaaaawn>"No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!", says Forrester, in Finding Forrester. Thats what I think I will do from now on. I know this is going to be harsh on the esteemed readers of my blog (heee heee)..still a man has gotta do what he has gotta do.
Swami Vivekanada Said, "This life a great opportunity..Seek the highest..Aim for the highest and you shall reach the highest...". Now that one quote can inspire me to work beyond my physical and mental abilities and achieve something (please do note that I am also not clear of what the something is and in what would I reach the highest). It would cause me intense pain if donot reach my goal.Then as Gita says(I mean the Bhagavad Gita), do your duty and do not expect the results...Reaching the goal is acheiving a positive result - so I should not expect to reach the goal but nevertheless try..
One of my friends forwarded me an excerpt from Somerset Maugham's Human Bondage. You can find it here. After reading it...I felt more depressed than ever...whats the use of all this? Why work like a donkey for that elsuive promotion an year from now or that hike half an year from now? Life has no meaning...why whould we try to make the most of the human life which we have got...? why not just be another also ran...? This does fit in nicely with the concept of everything being Maya..all of us just in the Matrix...
Now, if only I could get some clarifications....
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