I gave my folks a surprise and they gave me one !

I was supposed to ride to Horsley Hills with other folks which was 2 days ride (170+170). But, sadly, I had to be back in the city to attend some class by 4 pm. Hence had to drop the ride outright. To reduce the regret I planned to join them till Devanahalli and turn back. We started at around 4.45 am at Jayadeva Hospital. Good folks, must say. I enjoyed riding n chatting with them. But it wasn’t for long, we reached Devanahalli by 6.45 am and I bid good-bye to them, repenting of course. I wasn’t any tired at that point and to the fact that it was just 22 km to Chikkaballapur (my granny’s place) from there and that my parents were there that day, without any more thought I cycled ahead to strike them with a surprise. I reached Chikkaballapur by 7.45 am. They were indeed surprised, but I got a bigger one, I gotta know that it was their anniversary that day !! (Cursed myself for having forgotten it and for not having wished them the first after striking them, it would have been a double-dhamaka-surprise :\) However felt good for having met them on the day, wishing them and taking blessings. Good Saturday eh, after all ? 🙂 Had breakfast, and got back on to the saddle, pedaling my way back to Bengaluru at 9.30 am and reached home at 1.30 pm. Good music on my sansa clip+, hydration fluid and a Gatorade drink, all compensated the scorching heat of the noon Sun. I also doused my head with water at a fuel pump to beat the heat. The breeze, for the next couple of miles, cooled the tiny water droplets and hence the faster I pedaled more cooler I felt :). Quite a ride it was, for that day.

I ended up scribbling a lot, I guess 😛

Ride stats —

The day: Saturday, 13th March 2010

Route: JP Nagar – Chikkaballapur – JP Nagar

Total distance covered: 150 km

Time on saddle: 7 hours

Average speed: 21.4 kmph

Current odometer reading : 2225 km

Lazy Sunday morning ? No, not for me

Brief intro to the cyclist in me – I loved cycling in my school days, its been 7 years since then, all through this period I missed cycling a lot. It was more evident by how unfit I was compared to my good ol’ school days. So, being a health conscious me and to the painful fact that putting on weight for me, if I do not workout regularly no matter what diet I follow, is the next easiest thing to adding 1+1, damn, and to my undying love towards cycling, I wanted to get back to cycling to keep myself fit and get back in shape. Hence, buying a uber cool cycle was in my wish-list since I finished my engineering. And that’s why ended up buying Merida Matts 20 MD bicycle for whopping 21,500 INR about three months back. But, it is total VFM.. how ? in later posts may be. That is how I am, if I need to buy something I do intense research and try to buy a quality product, even if it makes me to wait long so that I can save some penny to shell out. Since then, I have been cycling quite a lot, small 10-20 km rides preparing for Bengaluru Cyclothon to start with, and then the Cyclothon, and many 100+ km rides almost every weekend along with the fellow cyclists from Bangalore Bikers Club (read BBC, we call it so). I have grown to a cycling maniac now, long rides have almost become my pakka weekend plan, if there is nothing more critical work lined up.

Ok ! So, as per my pakka weekend ride plans I was supposed to ride to a water stream near Anchetti, 170 km round trip, yesterday with BBC riders. It would have been my second time to that place had I done it yesterday, but as some other work showed up, I couldn’t do that ride. Having missed that ride I wanted to counter it with a small ride within the city today. I thought of joining the weekly Sunday morning Go-Green rides. Today. strangely, I woke up late for the first time to miss that ride. I have managed to wake up without alarms with even just 3 hr sleep many times before to join rides. Without regretting much knowing that solo rides are quite a fun too I started off at 8AM taking turns randomly.  All I wanted was to cover atleast 40 km. Surprisingly, on this ride I could manage to get in to Cubbon Park, I had thought cycling isn’t allowed in there. I just wanted to give it a try since I was desperate to ride off-road, and thankfully nobody stopped me when I cycled past through the gate. May be I was wrong, may be cycling is indeed allowed in there as I saw a couple of other boys cycling around. I had total fun riding on the mud with random inclines and declines, under huge Bamboo trees, jumping over small ramps here and there and trying the same with better speeds… With all these fun, I also managed to injure my foot hitting it to rock unknowingly of course. It is just a small inner injury without any bruises, thankfully the shoe avoided more serious injury. I reached back home by 11AM having clocked about 40km.

Damn, I ended up writing a lot wanting just this ride summary to convey on this post. Anyways, more about the cycling maniac in me and some good rides which I wanna share in the later posts.

Cheers! 🙂

No, I’m not dead

No, I’m not dead. Nor is my blog.  I have left my blog inactive for loooong now, my bad.  No more am I gonna do that, not after all the inspiration induced in me from other fellow bloggers. I have been crawling through many a blogs lately. And some of them have been inspiring. Inspiring in the way they convey their thoughts, the style, the content, and especially, the thought transfer they do.  I am not uber cool in writing, but yeah, I intend to improve by blogging. So, I resolute myself to post regularly on random things and thoughts that hovers by me.

Thus ending this transitional post I like to wish you all a prosperous new year.

Be good, act wise, and enjoooy ! 🙂

Couldn’t help but help ?!

Tuesday, 21/04/09

It was just another day at college, bunked all the classes of the day. Had been there just to fill the examination & convocation fee. After having done with the work, I started back to my room at Girinagar on my bike. Just when I crossed the ring road in front of the college main gate, I saw an old guy waving his hand pleading for a lift from me. I usually don’t entertain people  asking for lifts. So, as all the times I overlooked his pleading and continued throttling my way. Err.. ! But, all of a sudden my bike stopped. Yes, I had applied the brakes. The guy looked very old and weak under the glaring sun. I thought that I wouldn’t lose anything by dropping him to some place on my way (except that I will have to drop him before ripping my bike again ;)) . He said that he wanted to go to Padmanabhanagar to get some work done and that he had lost his daily bus pass, the only thing which could have taken him there – which I came to know later( he had not a penny with him). Since I was not heading to that place, I agreed to drop him to some nearby bus stop where he can get a bus to his destination.

Now at the bus stop when I stopped for him to get down, bingo, he asked me if I have 10 Rs to spare him so that he can get to his destintion. I looked his face for a second. I did not wanted to lie him that I had no money, no particular reason for this. Yet, I did not wanted to give him that money, not so easily. I mean, I just gave him a 3 minute ride and he is asking me for money ! ( No offense, but don’t we think twice before sparing a rupee or two to a beggar ? ) He was standing right beside staring at me hoping that I would help him. I just couldn’t make an escape from there nor could I lie him that I don’t have money. My mind went through absolute null thoughts for the next ten seconds.

Then, I just reached my wallet to take out a 10 rupee note and gave him that. He thanked me and made his way to the shelter. And I throttled to rip my bike back to my room.

End Note : Nothing ! ….

RaghuDixit at his best made my day!

My pal Sharath told me about this live concert of RDP ( Raghu Dixit project) at Jain college as part of the 10th annual VTU fest a month a ago. Me being a avid music lover and a fan of Raghu gave him a nod to attend the concert right away.

It was on 20th feb, and the day did come. As it was the release day of Delhi6, with our recently developed better-be-short hobby of watching first day, first show of some movies ( had watched two of them fdfs now – Luck By Chance, DevD ) we decided to watch Delhi6 the same way and we did..!  Thanks(!) to Sharath for presenting this brilliant idea to watch it at sastha dhaam (low-price) at Rajarajeshwari theatre. The theatre was at its worse at sound and picture quality that day. For me the show was pretty boring with no audible dialogues, I was totally pissed off at this theatre, more because I was totally excited to watch this movie. May be the movie was nice, but this cramped theatre made it feel like nothing more than devastating!

Due to this experience I was not in mood to attend the concert that evening. But then I came to know that the venue was SBMJCE which is about 35 kms off the city on Kanakpura road at 8 pm!! As I like night riding, I was waiting for a chance like this for some time now and that too for Raghu’s concert.! And yet again we decided right away not to ruin this golden chance. We started at about 6.45 pm and reached the venue at about 8.05 pm. It was quite an uncomfortable ride just coz I had to ride without using the tinted visor of my helmet with traffic right in front of me. I made my mind to get a transparent visor soon.

RDP at SBMJCE

So there we were! The show had already begun. We could hear the deep bass reflexes for which my heart had started to pump in its rhythm (Lol). After making short security entries at the main gate we rushed to the main stage which was at about 0.5 kms from the gate. This stage was almost in the mid first half of the campus. Imagine the actual size of the campus yourself! We then entered the stage area and made ourselves as close to the stage as possible. This stage-set along with the rocking sound system outperformed the BMS Utsav one’s, which was my best so far. The 1000 odd crowd were cheering, dancing ( some even going crazy) to raghu’s Hey Bhagwan tune. Most of them including us had to stand on stacked up chairs to get the glimpse of raghu’s band on stage in person which pretty much says how crowded it was there. Well, there were some 3 screens set to help others too. Just then Raghu started  Mysore Se Ayi Woh song – one of his bests ever. I started dancing on the chairs, glad the chairs bear my thumps! My neck is still aching which says the degree of banging it went over then at the show. He also made funny slang comments between the songs. I don’t actually remember all of them, one of it goes something like this – ” waste nan maklu neevella kuthkondiravru, hindhe iro crowd nodi kaliree hege kunibeku antha, yeddhelree.. “ (those who are sitting are waste ! learn from the crowd behind on how to dance and cheer) pointing to the first few rows(VIP’s ?) who were sitting. The band also performed songs like – Gudugudiya Sedi Noda, Khidki, Mumbai-Waiting for a Miracle, Har Saans Main, Ninna Poojege bandhe Mahadeshwara, Ee Thanavu Ninnadhe. I think I have listed all of them. We couldn’t help climbing down the stacked chairs and dance to his tunes much more, like many others out there. Many of my steps came out after a real long time!

Before his last song Raghu stated all the audience NOT to encourage piracy. He made it clear to all that it took him 12 years to reach this stage and to convince someone to fund for the release of his debut album and that it takes just some minutes for one to download it for free from internet. He asked us to buy those downloaded-for-free songs (not just his) if one really likes it and not to buy it otherwise. He looked pretty serious when he stated this and I felt what he said was very right. Nothing comes for free right? There is a lot of money, struggle and effort put behind a good album release. We can’t just enjoy them for free ! And that is why we have to buy them to pay back for their talent and effort towards it. Sharath has already bought Raghu’s album and he follows this rule. I shall buy his album at the earliest and I also suggest you to do so.

I almost forgot the others on his band. It is not just Raghu who is making all this happen. There’s lot more behind this apart from his unique,rusty voice and that is his band members. I like to compliment all his band members – Vijay, Gaurav Vaz and especially to Jithin Das on violin and Siva on drums/percussions. ” Guys you were just awesome, hats off to you ” .

That was the one rocking show which came to an end. Sharath had bought the album CD’s to get it autographed by Raghu which was impossible because of the crowd. I pity on you, Sharath. It was almost 10.15 pm and we wanted something to counter our hunger. We stopped at the canteen beside the main entrance for the same. I must say that I fell in love with the canteen right away. Man! was that a canteen? If so, then what is the one which we have at our college? damn! It had two LCD TV’s which was showing 9X Music accompanied by BOSE speakers, air conditioned and what not! After all this, food came at a reasonable cost. Dude! Why am I not studying in this college?  The campus by the way is huge too, with exclusive grounds for each sport. It has a Golf court too! Enough said. I can’t appreciate some college which I’m not a part of  anymore. I’ll stop here.

We started our return at 10.45 pm to reach the city at almost 12 am. The return journey was pretty smooth with no much traffic and I enjoyed the ride while sharath was cursing his boredom.

RDP at SBMJCE

RDP band

Anyways Raghu Dixit Project concert made that day of mine,  over that crappy theatre experience !

PS : Swalpa kuidhiddhini ansatthe… dhayavittu adjust madkolli..!

I love shooting Macro’s. Well, who doesn’t ? ;)

There are a bunch of photography enthusiasts out there who love shooting macro’s (close -up’s) and I’m one among them !

One of the pleasures of owning a compact point and shoot digital camera(DC) is this feature to shoot lovely macro images without having to purchase any other accessories (all those expensive macro lenses, etc.) . Well, even if you can buy one, your compact DC won’t support it. Better cameras capture much better snaps ( like DSLR’s) but for now we’ll stick to our compact digital cameras.

If you haven’t tried taking macro shots so far, and if you are wondering how to kill those free times on those holidays, when you are alone at home (which is quite rare!), to get over boredom, then try taking macro’s on your DC. I bet you will  love it ! ( well, I’m loving it)

Any of these can be your subject – insects, flowers, gadgets(yeah!), labels or any other stuff which has minute details and/or delicate structure ( with plain background preferred).

Simple guide to capture macro’s :

• Choose an appropriate subject.
• Turn ON the macro mode of your DC.
• Use the auto mode  of the camera if you are a beginner. Or, if you you don’t bother scratching your head by playing around with manual settings ( like shutter speed, ISO, etc.) GO AHEAD. But it might take some time for you to get hold of it.
• I prefer shooting macro shots without flash. I feel flash light disguises significant details which are essential for a perfect macro snap. So, try with flash ON/OFF and see the difference yourself.
• Get as close as you can to the subject. If the subject is an insect, it might be quite dreadful for those insectophobians to get really close. But, if you don’t, it is at a cost – snap without ulti-delicate details of the insect.
• Press the shutter button down halfway, ensure proper focus of the subject and its details ( repeat till you get better focus, try different angles and choose the best – very important ) and capture the photo by pressing the shutter down all the way.
• Thats it!   I’m sure you will be awestruck by reviewing the macro you just shot all by yourself.

Remember to remain as steady as possible during the capture. At these extremely close distances and with larger apertures you will have a very short depth-of-field (DOP). Any small movement of the camera and/or the subject is amplified resulting in a blurry image. This can be avoided by using a tripod for the camera or simply by placing the camera on some  solid structure. As for the latter (the subject) you might have to pray the subject (or the wind, at outdoor’s) to cooperate with you. 🙂

Here are some macro’s I’ve taken… (last three from my friend  Sharath). Click on the image to see it enlarged.

– Sharath

– Sharath

– Sharath

ನನ್ನ ಗೆಳೆಯ ರಾಜೀವ್….

ರಾಜೀವ್ ನ ನಲ್ಲೆ ಅವನಿಗೆ ಕೇಳಿದಳು,
” ನಲ್ಲ, ನೀನು ನನ್ನ ಹ್ರುದಯವನ್ನೆಕೆ  ಕದ್ಧಿಲ್ಲ ? ”
ರಾಜೀವ್  ತನ್ನ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ತಲ್ಲೀನನಾಗಿರುವಾಗ, (ಬಹುಶಃ ತನ್ನ ಮತ್ತೊಬ್ಬ ನಲ್ಲೆಯ ಜೊತೆ ಚಾಟ್ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಾ!?!)
ಅವಳು ಮತೊಮ್ಮೆ ಕೆಳಿದಳು,
” ನಲ್ಲ, ನಲ್ಲ, ನೀನು ನನ್ನ ಹ್ರುದಯವನ್ನೆಕೆ  ಕದ್ಧಿಲ್ಲ ? ”
ರಾಜೀವ್ ಈಗ ಏನೋ ಧೀರ್ಘವಾಗಿ ಯೋಚಿಸಿ, ಕೆಲ ಕ್ಷಣಗಳ ನಂತರ,
” hmmmm, ಏನು..??  ಈಗ ಹೇಳು…”
(ಪಾಪ ಆ) ನಲ್ಲೆ ಮತೊಮ್ಮೆ ,
” ನಲ್ಲ, ನೀನು ನನ್ನ ಹ್ರುದಯವನ್ನೆಕೆ ಇನ್ನೂ ಕದ್ಧಿಲ್ಲ ? ”
ರಾಜೀವ್ ಹೇಳಿದ,
” ನಾನೇನು ಮಾಡಲಿ ನಲ್ಲೆ, IMDb ಯಲ್ಲಿ ಇನ್ನೂ ನಿನ್ನ ಹೃದಯದ rating ಹಾಕಿಲ್ಲವಲ್ಲ…!!! ”  🙂 🙂

–> ಸಾಗರ್

ಇದನ್ನು ಬರೆಯಲು ನಾನು quillpad ವೆಬ್ ಸೈಟನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿದ್ದೇನೆ.