Sunday, May 29, 2005

Deverayana Durga - Where silence is broken by the Birds..

DEvarayana Durga, is a quite hill station(or say hillock) just around 65 km from
Bangalore .. This is the place we've decided to give a visit this weekend .. As
Siva,Nathan n Jk ware busy it left me and Srikant to make the trip .. I woke up to a call from Srikant in my mobile at 5.30..It seems I switched off my alarm and slept till the call came.. I was supposed to start before 5.30 am and I was still sleeping.. So ultimately I was able to start by 6.15am.. Had some tea and bun near Srikants home.. So here we come D.Durga .. We have to take NH4 to reach D.Durga.. at the 20 km Milepost before Tumkur we have to a u turn and a small muddy road(just 15 mts) connects to D'Durga road..NH4 is part of the PM highway scheme and one dream road to drive.. I was constantly driving above 100 and the road was smooth like silk.. Probably these roads were the best gift by the previous government and I hope the good will be continued by the new govt..Anyway,after taking the state road from NH4 we are back to real roads from the dream road ;-).. Road was not so good and most of the places was full of potholes.. it's around 15 km from the diversion of NH4 and it took us more time to cross this part then it took from Blr to the diversion.. ;-) But so what, I enjoyed the countryside and it was really really beautiful..
After sometime we reached the DD forest range and we stopped in many places as we were spotting lotsa avians on the way .. Really the place was full of lotsa birds.. Though my birding knowledge was limited I was able to id some of them.. Me and srikant tried to capture them in film but what I found that my equipment is really not suitable for any short of birding.. After some misadventures we decided to move on towards DD hill.. On the top of the hill there is a temple but first we decided to roam around other places and look for some birds/bugs/butts or whatever we thought can be clicked .. And our patience did paid up .. We were able to shoot some Lizzards( I'm still not able to id those two species) .. And there were lotsa butterflies around .. I could catch some of them after an hour of effort and quite satisfied with the outcome later..
Then we decided to give a visit to the temple. It's actually inside the fort we had to climb some stairs to get there.. Believe me the view was awesome from the top and I wish I was there early morning or late afternoon to catch the magic light(Sigh!!! I wish!!!
how I wish,how I wish you were here - Pink Floyd!!! ;-);-) )
So after spending some time in the temple we decided to call it a day and march back to where we belong(namma bengaluru) .. The return journey was uneventful and only thing I remember that we had tender coconut water on way back and wow it probably tasted like nectar..

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Where to go??? and raindrops...

After the weather-spoiled Kolar road trip I was roaring to go for another one .. now this one come from Srikant's mail for a trip to Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary or to be specific Bheemeswari.. But again after lotsa discusions/brainstorming and fights CWS was cancelled.. So I had nothing to do on the Sunday and was thinking of spending the day sleeping .. ;-) Yesterday night had a nice candle-light Diner at Rajeeb's new house(Seems the elctric trasnformer tripped after the storm in the evening)..
Around 11 am got a msg from Srikant about some place called Devarayana Durga..It's a small hillock near Tumkur and seems to a nice place tofind birds and reptiles..But as there was not much time(I had to wait for Siva as he was to join me and then we planned to move towards Srikant's home) to make a long trip we decided to give a visit to Tipu's Brithplace,i.e. Devanahalli .. After waiting for Siva for a long time he arrived at around 2.40 pm.. Anway we started asap and picked up Srikant on the way .. the Road to devanahalli is in progress and in some places both way traffic had to share the same stretch of road.. Except that the road was good.. I hope the work will be finished soon.
Nowadays it seems like every developement work in bangalore has stopped.. Everything is moving in a snail pace,thanks to the new stupid Government and their policies..
We reached the place on around 4pm and parked the car inside the fort.. actually there is a settlement of people inside the fort walls.. The fort is not that big and it seems walls have been collapsed in some places.. Everything seems to be in pathetic condition. There was no maintanance or stuffs like that.. And it seems some places are used by the localites as their toilets..Well probably Srikant will like to say somehting about something dry,ahem..;-);-)
After shooting some pics of the fort walls and inside the temple(VEnugopalaswamy Temple)we decided to return back to Bangalore as it was getting dark and Sun was setting on the Horizon.. On the way back we thought of having some tea and Srikant has taken us to a very nice lil' Bengali Sweet shop in Jalahalli.. The Singra(or Samocha) was really good and I was feeling like having it on my hometown.. We also had something called ChanaPayas and that was yummy..
Arrived home by 8 pm and waiting for the rain to come .. I really miss my native home when it rains.. I love to hear the raindrops falling on the Tin-roof at my home but not so in the RCC roofs in Bangalore.. ~sigh~

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Early Morning,Kolar Road(NH4) and a bad weather

Sunday morning 4.30 am .. While most of the earthlings,well atleast the Indian specimens, are happily sleeping I ventured out on the Kolar road in search of some photo ops .. There are lotsa hillocks on the way I thought of getting some clicks.. Well I was not alone,Nathan was also with me.. I travelled on that road thrice b4 and neither time I had my camera with me.. So this time determined to get something out of it .. We were welcome by a nice cool morning and thought it would be a great day to shoot but we failed to see the overhanging clouds .. While I woke up I could feel the gentle breeze and that moment I had a feeling that it might rain today.. Well it didn't rain but the overcast condition left us high and dry .. Well maybe next time ..

Monday, May 02, 2005

Writing after a long time..

Last month was a busy month . .no , not with work even not with photography .. Was busy with family.. My sister,aunt and cousins have came to Bangalore and I was busy moving them around .. It is really nice to have someone from home at Bangalore .. Had a real nice time .. Was feeling sad when they left for home last Wednessday ..
Yesterday Rajeeb invited us to his new house that he have bought recently .. A very nice cute house .. I really liked it and the dinner was very nice ..Normally I don't like fish that much but yesterday it was delicious..
Nothing much to do at office today so thought of writing something into the blog ..