Inzy's Last Bow...

It's not everyday that you witness a great sportsman leave the game with such a tremendous farewell. Inzamam-Ul-Haq in his more than 15 Yrs career has come a long way. With over 10000 runs in One-Day Internationals, this man has led his team to some amazing wins.

Agreed that he never had a great world cup record and the ousting of the team from the 2007 edition was one of the most humiliating ways to end such an illustrious career, but all said and done the kind of farewell the man got from the fraternity speaks volumes about him.

Not only did the entire Zimbabwe squad bid him farewell, the whole Pakistan squad was on the field to accompany him during his final walk, off the batting pitch. And as Charu Sharma said during the match...'Big Bears Do Cry!'

Clearly one of the most touching farewells to one of the best the game has seen.

Kemmangundi

Been quite a while since I finished this long pending post.

Pictures of the trip can be found here , here , here & here.

For those who have been wondering what is Kemmangundi…well, it’s a hill station around 250 kms from Bangalore in the district of Chikmaglur. The place is also known as KR Hills named after King Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV. Places of interest around KR Hills are the Kalahati Falls, Hebbe Falls & Shanti Falls.
We (Me, S & B) started on our journey from Bangalore at around 12AM. It did take us a while to decide who would sit in the front seat of the Indica…and No…the fight wasn’t to occupy the seat but rather giving up any sort of claim to the front seat of a car!!! Reason being that the guy who sits there can’t fall asleep throughout the journey as the driver may get distracted…

Anyway, S agreed to occupy the seat for the first half of the journey and I switched places with him at around 2AM after we had stopped for some tea. One useful piece of advice that I got was, “Put on your seat belt. That way even if you fall asleep, you wouldn’t be using the driver’s lap as a pillow!”; pretty good advice I thought.
We reached Kemmangundi around 4.30AM and boy was it scary? We found our way to the Horticulture Guest house, thanks to a wild rabbit hopping merrily along the road. Of course that wasn’t the only wild life that we saw. A Jackal was moving around in the bush probably looking for some late night/early morning snack. Anyway, we reached the guest house only to find absolutely no sign of any homo sapien…just 4 Canis familiaris (Bole to kutte). It was quite scary when the animals strategized and surrounded us from four different directions, thus preventing us from moving from our spot. S armed with a stick did put up a brave front and chakravyuha ko cheer kar we managed to escape. Luckily, some one woke up and opened a door somewhere. On exploring a bit we were relieved that it was the caretaker. Though, the fun didn’t end there. Apparently, the guy with whom we had confirmed our booking was on leave and hence we were given a temporary room. We had to shift to another place in the morning around 9AM. Though the lady in-charge of guest house bookings was quite helpful in arranging for the same.

All this took quite a lot of time in the morning and we were a bit delayed for the trek hat was planned. Nevertheless, we started on the trek around 12PM, on the lookout for the famous Shanti Falls & the much hyped Z-Point. Well, we did come across these landmarks but the Shanti fall proved to be less of a waterfall and more of a stream trickling down the hill. Of course, the water body proved to be such a big relief on our way back due to the heat and hence thirst. Z-Point was just a small path cut in the mountain in the shape of a reverse Z! Reaching the end of the trek seemed like such an achievement. Walking almost 4 kms on that hilly track was something. Hadn’t done anything like this for quite a while and it was quite exhilarating. J
The return path seemed easier as we were going downhill but at the same time it was scary. There was a point where a wrong step to the edge would have taken us thousands of feet down the valley. It seemed like the entire valley was going around us and we were still, when we observed it from the corner of your eyes as we moved ahead in a straight path. Was a bit dizzying.
Reaching the Shanti Falls was such a great relief…B broke into a song as soon as he saw the water body and ran into the stream in a La-Aamir-Khan style!
Back at the guest house, we headed towards the Nursery, post lunch. The green lawns were so inviting after the tiring trek that we just fell over there lazily. After a few foto sessions returning back to the room was bliss. Evening saw us venturing out for some food (this is a scarce commodity) and dinner just omlette at a roadside thela. Walking in the pitch dark jungle was a bit scary though. The rest of the evening was spent reading books and getting cricket updates on the India-Bangladesh match on the fone. Of course we did have our cricket expert with us (Chk out the pics below) who very patiently heard every suggestion that we made and like a true gentleman and fan didn’t react to the outrageous remarks made by us.

We left the place early next morning around 9AM for the Kalahatti falls. This is a religious place for both Hindus & Muslims and one can see people from both communities traveling here to visit the shrine.

The trip back home was quite uneventful and the taste of real food at a roadside restaurant near Bangalore was so heartening.

Real looking forward to the next trip.

For those who want to visit KR Hills, I would suggest you get your guest house bookings done well in advance. It can be done by calling the horticulture guest house directly or at Lalbagh.

Details of the same can be found here.

Visual DNA!

Came across this interesting way to represent one's preferences here.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Yahoo Humbled!

The internet has become a very powerful medium and the bloggers community which has been growing by the numbers day-in and day-out has been a strong force to reckon with.

Came across this article recently which proves this point very effectively. Btw, I never realized that the Creative Commons License put at the bottom of my page could be such an important thing! ;-)

For The Woman in Your Life

8th March is celebrated as the International Day of Women across the globe. Heard and saw quite a lot of activities on this day yesterday. There were radiostations inviting women into their studios and talking to them over the air, hospitals organizing free health checkups for women and even pubs/restaurants serving drinks 'On the House' on the day...Boy, sometimes do you wish you were a woman! ;-)

But on a serious note, we do see, even today, a lot of things that need to change. We say that we're living in a new world, but how many of us truly believe and practice the principles of this world?

Received an e-mail from a friend on Womens Day. It sure is pretty interesting and quite relevant.

"A Woman"

This is written in the Hebrew Talmud, the book where all of the sayings and preaching of Rabbis are conserved over time. It says:

"Be very careful if you make a woman cry,

because God counts her tears.

The woman came out of a man's rib.

Not from his feet to be walked on.

Not from his head to be superior,

but from the side to be equal.

Under the arm to be protected,

and next to the heart to be loved."

There's Something About the Nawabs Place!

No trip to Hyderabad can be uneventful. This is a fact and everytime I have visited the place something unexpected has happened. If it was the bus during the last visit, there were a whole lot of happenings this time around.
On the Holi weekend, a couple of us planned a visit to the city of Nawabs to celebrate with the whole gang out thr. Left office early on Friday and surprisingly the auto we took reached the bus-stand well ahead of time. After we got down from the auto, the fun began. As we reached the bus, I suddenly realized that I had left my travel bag in the auto! The worst part was that apart from the usual stuff that ravel bags are supposed to carry, it had my digicam and cellphone as well. A frantic attempt to look for the auto was futile. We tried to lodge a complaint at the nearest Police Station but it was of no use. Apparently the place where we lost my stuff was not under their jurisdiction and we were directed to another Police Station (and one thought these things happened only in the movies!). We obviously couldn’t get there as we had a bus to catch.
Got on the bus and had an uneventful journey from Blr to Hyd. Reached on time and then we decided to go for breakfast. As we stepped on the road, we witnessed an accident (my first live one!). A bike hitting a car that was making a turn coming out of a petrol pump. And then my friend remarked that the driver of the bike (who was somewhat injured) had traveled with us on the same bus from Bangalore! Coincidence?
Well I did my shopping for clothes in the afternoon. Had a gr8 lunch and met up with friends.
Next day Holi was a short affair. Played for just about 30 mins but the colors were terrific. Couldn’t get them off for 2 days :-) .
Of course, whatever happens is due to a reason. We just need to think beyond and realize that. Isn’t this what makes the small moments of life worthwhile. I lost some prized possessions but the amazing experience during the entire trip more than made up for that I guess.