Arun Pillai | Blog

2007 beckons

Sat, 10 May 2008 21:09:24 GMT

Sharing some of the my best moments of 2007 -

Bandipur National Park, Karnataka

Note - Will have to live with these antique photographs as am yet to click something new :)

Life un-noticed

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:40:56 GMT

Bangalore outskirts, early 2007

I was aimlessly surfing through my old photographs and found this one. Since am not traveling these days and absolutely no photography, sharing this one. Hopefully a month from now, i will be able to get back to my old weekend chores - traveling/photography and much more :)

Hope everyone is doing good!

Newyear update

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:51:11 GMT

I am moving on to a state of hibernation in terms of blogging, photography and travel, which means for the next few months, there would hardly be any updates from me. Something else took over the priority list and for next six months, i will dedicate the whole of myself for the same - though i might drop into my LJ friends page as and when i get time.

On an other note, I am getting engaged on February 2008.

Hope everyone out there had an amazing Christmas and New year. 2007 was pretty fruitful for me in terms of travel, work, achievements and photography. Infact i happen to meet and get along with some of the best people in this side of the world. Thanks everyone for your time. Now to sum up, looking forward for a brightful 2008 !!!

An insight into century-old monumental thenmala rail route

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:59:36 GMT

My last trip to kerala gave me a chance to explore the century old 13-arch railway flyover, thenmala and let me tell you that's a marvelous piece of art that the english men has left behind. And thats something which i call *engineering*

Just besides this rail route is the state highway which links to Tamilnadu and i had taken this route a lot of times with my family, but never found any quality time before to stop by this place. Better late than never, i made it last time when i packed my bags and headed to Shenduruny wildlife sanctuary.

Upon reaching there around 7am, we parked our car between these giant pillars and started hunting for the way where we could climb uphill.Later with the help of some localities, we started our expedition with a cuppa coffee, thanks to the hospitality of people around. Just about 15 minutes of trek, you be right on top of this historical rail-cross, where one could get a semi birds eye view of the area which comprises of a river to the right, forest, minor streams and endemic tree species on either sides.

Unlike normal tracks which we get to see, this is a meter guage which is very narrow in shape and with limited service. Of late heard even thats been shut down with the aim of expansion. We walked through the track for about 30 minutes and went passed couple of tunnels carved out of rocks.

In fact close to one hour of time, which we spend out here is just priceless :-)

P.S - More views of this monumental pillar here and here

It's about the white lion

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:19:06 GMT

Well, i was going through an interview article which Kevin Richardson gave to my company and let me tell
you that's a good piece of work. Amen to the folks who worked behind that. I really loved it

That clearly portrays Kevin's message on conservation and what/who inspired him to get into the track of wildlife.
Somewhere down the page, he talks about his project, The Whitelion and that's again inspiring.

Feel the thrill for yourself here - http://www.whitelionthemovie.com/trailer.htm

Let me sum up this post wishing everyone a very happy and safe Diwali !!!

Thenmala expedition, Kerala

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:58:17 GMT

As mentioned in my previous post, its time for more photographs and write-up.
This time am gonna write about Thenmala, the eco tourism project and some interesting places near by.

Thenmala, as a place is widely known due to Thenmala dam, which is the center of attraction of this place.
There are lots of things to write about this place and the dam, which is built across Kallada river.

Things like -

Second largest irrigation project in Kerala.
Longest reservoir in the state
Location - close to Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary
India's first eco tourism project
Boastful earth dam which welcomes you to this place

Any one visting this place make sure to visit eco-tourism project which is close by.
Just drop-in to their office. People will guide you from there on.

Main attractions here are divided in to multiple zones.

Adventure Zone

Elevated walkway | Mountain biking | River crossing | Rock climbing | Rappelling

Culture Zone

Restaurant | Shop court | Amphitheatre | Musical dancing fountain

Leisure Zone

The boardwalk | Sway bridge | Forest pathway | Sculpture garden

Other interesting things here include jungle trip in a battery driven vehicle(something which i liked about this place), trekking, deer park and boating by which you can explore the mighty ghats and it's inhabitants.

Once your done with all these and still have odd free hours, head to Palaruvi falls, which is about 16km from this place.

All in all i guess this is an amazing one day package.

Reference - www.thenmalaecotourism.com

Note - All these photographs are captured at 70mm because of which it would lack that complete wide angle effect,
which again reminds me of buying a decent wide angle lens!!!

Back from a short break

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:59:23 GMT

After months of gruelling project work, i managed to take a 2 week off from work and bangalore lifestyle.
Headed to my hometown, kerala with solid plans in mind to spend the entire days with my parents and relatives.
Something to highlight among these is my mom's 49th b'day. All in all this short vacation turned out pretty good to
cover up some pending tasks and little bit of photography. And when i write this, i am back in b'lore, gearing up for
regular bangalore chores. This is just a heads up post which says - I am very much alive.

More photo posts to follow !!!

It's Flicking

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:24:00 GMT

It's flickr time every where. Every second person i meet these days have an account with them or
has something to talk about it.I remember registering myself to this way back, when they launched.
But that account was kinda left unused - thanks to LJ.

And the very fact that i don't have any photo-gallery of my own, putting up some of my collections
here makes sense.I am starting off with a ~~basic~~ free account, but as someone smarter than me
said - there is always an option later : -)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arunpillai/

Blackbuck expedition

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:48:56 GMT

Our weekend trip to Madhugiri, to photograph blackbucks was completely unsuccessful.

21/07/2007 : As usual me and nidhin, started at 5am to madhugiri via tumkur. We had a detailed route map, which helped us in reaching half way. A slight mistake in the route map, spoiled our entire day. Instead of taking a right turn from puruvara, we took a left turn - thanks to the route assistant, and went off-track for about 20-30 kilometers.

As the journey progressed, we noticed something strange in the place as we spotted couple of andhra pradesh transport buses speeding across the narrow road. Yes your right, we crossed A.P border!!!

We had lots of problems in finding the proper way back to jayamangali black buck sanctuary.
Even folks around there couldn't help us as we had communication problems. Though i know little bit of Kannada (sigh!!!), their slang was little bit different for us to follow. Then called up a bangalorean friend of mine to find out what's the kannada version of blackbuck. She told me its "krishna mriga" and "gingey" for deer. Given the fact that we understood the basics of gingey and krishnamriga, we went ahead and asked them for gingey park.

Villagers brainstormed for a while and finally asked us to drive back 25 kms and enquire from there. We drove back entire 25 kms and reached a place called reddyhalli, where a cattle boy came forward to help us in finding blackbucks.

11.15am :He took the front seat and directed nidhin to take left - straight - right turn and we reached the spot, where websites boast of spotting blackbucks in pairs of 20, 40 and more. We parked the car and decided to walk. These grasslands welcomed us with a shock.

Am not sure, if this is a blackbuck carcass, but given the area and confirmation by the cattle boy, we were forced to think that way.Between all these, nidhin manged to photograph blackbuck and a bee-eater. All i could see was blackbucks in action, the moment they found three human creatures walking across. On top of all these, their was heavy rain and we got completely drenched. But was lucky enough to have our photography gears under cover.

7.30pm - This is when we got back home

Modified route -

Drive on the National Highway - 4 towards Tumkur town. 3.5 kilometres after Kyathasandra highway toll gate and about 3 kilometres before Tumkur city, the highway splits into Shimoga road (which enters Tumkur city) and Sira road (which bypasses Tumkur city).Travel on the Tumkur bypass / Sira road for about 4 kilometres and you should reach an under-construction overpass. Turn right towards Madhugiri town.

Travel on the Madhugiri road for about 41 kilometres till you reach Madhugiri town .Take a right turn and drive towards Hindupur town.Please note about 1.5 km from Madhugiri town, the road splits into Hindupur road on the left and Chikballapur/Gowridbidanur road that goes straight . From here, take a left turn towards Hindupur. 7 Kilometres from Madhugiri and way before the bridge over Jayamangali river / Kodegenahalli village, you will reach Puruvara village.

Take a left turn and travel on the ID halli village road for about 12 kilometres.As you proceed the habitat abruptly changes into open plains and one can spot a marshy road towards right.

Take this track. The grasslands and blackbuck habitat begins on this track.

Ramanagaram

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:06:35 GMT

It's been more than a month i did some sort of traveling. Hectic work schedules, personal engagements took most of my time. Between all this, worked out a quick day trip to Ramanagara, last week - thanks sainath, for helping me with the way.

Ideal place for a day trip. People who has that *thing* for trekking and rock climbing can appreciate this place better. Again its the same place widely known via movie sholay and for long-billed vultures.Since i had problems in finding this place, thought of leaving the route details, as it might help someone else.

About 48 km from Bangalore - Follow mysore highway till you find ghosia engineering college on the right side. Take a right turn from there and about 3 kms from there is where the historical ramanagaram is situated.

Some more pictures of ramanagaram landscape here

Online radio

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:29:56 GMT

Aware of any good online radio stations ?
Kinda bored repeatedly playing the same old tracks in my comp. Though i prefer Winamp - Shoutcast to Y! streaming, due to some weird reasons, can't configure the same at my work location. Anything else,proven better - most welcome !!!

Update - Thanks everyone for your valuable inputs. I got enough links to play around. Now slowly and steadily have to get used to it.

Turned 26

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:06:37 GMT

Thanks everyone who left birthday wishes on my journal/ orkut/mails/messages and calls. Special thanks to krysos , restoman , shivakumar_l, premkudva for their sweet entries. Thursday evening I headed to Cochin,Kerala for a 3 day vacation. Since I was on roaming, kept my cell phone at my friends house and went ahead with further plans. That way,I missed lotza calls which came in these days. If anyone still pissed off - explanation here !!! :P

Dinner + Foster + Movie - with couple of close friends around. Thats how this b'day went passed. Next day , I met my old college friends, who came down to Cochin for a wedding on Sunday. Together we drove back to our college days and shared some good old memories. In fact a good way to polish relationships from getting drained off.

Cochin climate was not fortunate enough for me to go around with my camera. It was drizzling through out the day.But still managed to get some indoor shots in and around Jewish Synagogue. This is an amazing place where one can find some of the very old portuguese building and even more which am yet to explore - thanks to kerala monsoon!

This time I escaped from all nasty b'day bumps and what all crazy souls can think of. Looks like my decision of staying away from bangalore on D-day, worked out pretty well. Looking forward for a bright year ahead.

Bird Portraits

Sun, 20 May 2007 18:42:49 GMT

Here are some of them which i captured on my trip to Mysore a few weeks back. Couldn't post it these days due to hectic work schedules. Finally this weekend paved way for me for to finish off all pending tasks.

Orkut Bug

Sun, 13 May 2007 18:22:33 GMT

As part of sunday cleanup initiative,thought of resetting my orkut account, to the way it was when i signed up an account with them.After all i don't think there is any big deal is retaining old scraps. Truly speaking, no one is gonna go back and check them up at any point of time.Where as on the other hand, i've seen people boasting about their scraps hitting 5000 marks, 2000 profile visits and similar craps.

With out wasting any time, went ahead and deleted all scraps and messages.WTF, it still shows 5 scraps and 1 un-read messages.Neither can i see them nor delete it.Is this a problem just with my account or an open bug ?

Crib + Photographs

Mon, 07 May 2007 19:46:18 GMT

Been a long time i updated something in this space. New project is kinda getting hectic as days pass by. Things are not moving in the way i wanted it to be.Thought i would be left with lots of free time once i start working with in the city, but ....

Food is another thing which is worrying me these days. Absolutely a big *NO* to non-veg at the new office cafeteria.Even so called *veg*,they provide turn out to be pathetic. So ended up walking around Kormangala in search of some quality lunch. Tried KFC, McDonalds, andhra, bengali, north dishes and let me tell you this - fed up eating outside. Looks like its high time, i need to reach out my hands on cooking.Next time i visit my hometown, have to spend some time with my mom in kitchen and master learn the art of cooking.People say, getting married is short-cut solution for this, though am not really convinced with such a great idea.Climate on the other hand is completely getting un-predictable. Either it rains at time or boils one down to 37 degrees.

Two of my workfellows, who turned out to be close friends later left the company recently to pursue their career/personal interests. Working with them very closely for about 2 years and all of a sudden when they fly off, its kind of hard to adjust and move on with a smile. Even its been a long time, i have worked with chrysallis and their community programs. Need to get in touch with them and have to get back to my good old schedules.
Like there are two sides to a coin, interesting things keep popping up in between.A chance to meet some amazing people at the new work location, lots of learning, lots of serious work and kinda things took a back seat due to some odd reasons.

Though there are lots of things to crib, in between came a relaxing drive on mysore road this weekend,which i would say - a decent break. Mysore is one place which i like to go on a weekend.A city known for historical places and buildings. Lots of places with in the city limits to watch out,where one get to click the whole day. Most important roads are pretty much in a good shape that one get to enjoy the driving part as well. I know its more of a whining post than a regular photography updates which i post. Stopping it here and letting you to watch some of the abstracts which i clicked last weekend -

Kaziranga tiger attack

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 03:29:37 GMT

One of worst tiger attacks, i have ever seen. Jayanth shared this video with me and nidhingp , last time we drove to bandipur national park. After all the tiring day safari, we went back to bear mountain jungle resort and watched some amazing wild life video's from his collection, starting with this -

The forest department received a message early on May 19th about a large tiger which had killed two cows near Tamuli Pathar village, which is close to the boundary of the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in the north-eastern Assam state. By 10 am a joint team of the Assam forest department including the director of the park, Mr N. K. Vasu, the local administration, police and the army, and the Wildlife Trust of India(WTI)-managed Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) was combing the area with five elephants trying to locate the animal.

Range officer, Dharanidhar Bodo, Dr Chaudhary along with a guard were riding the elephant, Joymala, driven by Pegu. Bodo was carrying the darting gun. As the elephant moved towards the tigress, it did a mock charge. The guard fired two blanks to discourage her and she ran away into the next field, where the paddy was thick and hid there.
The team cautiously moved towards it and could get to almost 20 feet where she was growling away. Bodo could see her clearly and took a shot at it with the dart gun. The dart missed her and this enraged her so much that she charged and took a “flying” leap on to the elephant’s head. “I have not seen something as dramatic as this,” Vivek Menon, executive director WTI, who recently saw the footage, said. “I could never imagine that a tiger could so effortlessly leap from the ground on to an adult elephant’s head, which is at least 12 feet above the ground,” he said.
The footage showed that Pegu saw the tigress leaping and threw the metal ankush at it to defend himself. “The tigress saw the ankush coming, dodged it in mid-leap and took a swipe at Pegu without actually landing on the elephant, which had stepped back,” Menon said.
“It all happened in a few seconds and before we knew what both Bodo and the guard had fallen down,” Dr Choudhary narrated. What now happened was even more amazing. As the tigress landed on the ground Joymala quickly pinned her down with her left fore foot and tried to control it with its trunk. The tigress struggled under this weight for at least half a minute roaring, as other people in the vicinity shouted and fired shots in the air. In this commotion another attempt was made to dart it, but even this shot was off the mark. The tigress finally struggled loose and ran away.
“If it had not been for Joymala, both Bodo and the guard would have been badly injured or dead,” he said. Meanwhile, Joymala, which was trying to aggressively chase the tigress, was calmed by the CWRC veterinarian, who was holding on to the profusely bleeding mahout. “His fingers were hanging by few shreds of tissue and I tried to tourniquet the wounds,” he said.
The two sub-adult tigers had strayed out of the heavily wooded Agoratuli range of the KNP into the neighbouring Tamuli Pathar village close to the national highway. It was speculated that the mother could be nearby, but she could not be spotted.
KNP has one of the highest density of tigers among the protected areas in India , but are difficult to see due to the thick vegetation in this grassland dominated park.
The Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) is a joint venture of the Assam forest department and the Wildlife Trust of India, and is supported by its partner the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). This rescue and rehabilitation facility for animals of the region is a first of its kind facility in India has handled over 300 animals in the last two years including mega-herbivores like elephants, rhinos and wild buffaloes. These were the first tigers brought to the facility in two years of its existence.

Note : This post relies information from this source.

Random updates

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:40:03 GMT

My nephew, Adwith Pillai celebrated his 3rd birthday on April 4' 2007. Heard from my sister that he'd a very nice time with his fellow classmates at The Montessori School . I am very bad in remembering people's D.O.B and trust me the only one, which i can easily pick up without sweating is mine and my nephew's ( 04-04-04 )

Normally this is how things work for me -

For my mom's b'day , dad will remind me in advance and similarly mom will remind me for dad's b'day, how sweet right :-)
For my parents wedding anniversary, it's my sisters turn to remind me about it. So in fact people around me plays a very important role.
Finally time has come for me to say good bye to electronics city and hosur road traffic. Moving to a new project from monday and will be working from client location. It's the next building to forum mall,walkable distance from where i stay. Although the platform, architecture and people there is completely new ,i expect a very peaceful life there as well and hoping to catch up with latest releases at PVR.I will be joined by pratibha and vishal from my ex-project. I badly wanted a change as it was kinda getting stagnated in my current project . Just realized 2+ years in one single project turns to be boring,when you realize there is nothing new and exciting.
Planning to resume early morning work-out at gym from next week
Nidhin, as usual is busy working out different plans for the upcoming weeks and heard from him that next destination is gonna be either kerala or kabini. Lets see how it goes.
Between, if anyone can help me with a ~~human made~~ birthday day reminder software, please shoot back.Tried couple of them,but most of them proved to be excellent spamming agents.

Bandipur Safari Updates

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 18:33:15 GMT

What a month i had ? Amazing . Not even a single weekend i spend in Bangalore . This is the month which i made use of the weekends pretty well.Of late we worked out lots of trips ( kerala, ranganathittu bird sanctuary,mysore, bandipur national park, mudumalai wildlife sanctuary ) As usual,Nidhin woke me up at 3am on a saturday morning.Had quick shower ,then we headed to BTM to pick jayanth sharma on our way to Mysore. Since we were on empty stomach,stopped at a road-side coffee day,had burger,mango frappe and speeded as fast as we could not to miss miss early morning photography as light's are perfect that time. George and three of his pals joined us in other car.We all met up at a lake in Mysore(name still unknown).Reaching there,nidhin mounted his camera,lens,tripod and went ahead to capture common king fisher basking on the river banks along with the asian openbills.I made use of the time to learn some techniques from jayanth and let me say he's very good in that.

The inital plan was to return back to bangalore by eve.But jayanth came up with plans of driving to bandipur for weekend jungle safari.Everyone brainstormed for a while as to how we can put this idea into practice.Plans were quickly laid out and we decided to back him up.Had a quick breakfast, shower at jayanth's house, where all of us rested for a while and by 1pm, we all drove to bandipur forest reserve.Reached there in time,booked two gypsy for evening 3'O clock safari.Let me tell you,that 4 hour safari was simply amazing that we could witness life,something which we i have seen only in NGC. Jayanth managed to get his favorite driver for that safari,who knows the forest in and out . Although first day proved unlucky for most of them , i made myself busy with jayanth,trying to understand the nature of animals,their alarm calls and ways by which they hunt.

End of the long awaited jungle safari,most of them came back with no real luck of spotting animals which they expected of.Moreover by the time tiredness caught hold of us.So we decided to end the day's program and left to bear mountain jungle resort,masainagudi. Resort folks welcomed us with chilled lemonade and snacks.Quickly checked in and had an hour sleep to glory.Night at resort was so inviting with delicious dinner and cocktails. Back to cottage, jayanth shared some experience from his recent all india tour .Later we all watched NGC video which showcased indian tigers. Around 12.30 it was time to exchange Good Bye!

Next day,a pleasant sunday around 6am, we drove back to bandipur for early morning safari.This time, we were lucky to spot langur,deer,sambar, varieties of birds ,elephants,wild dogs and many more.We were told by the driver cum naturalist about tiger sighting a few days back. Jayanth asked him to drive to a place which he felt chances of tiger sighting are more.To add to our excitement ,we found tiger pugmarks on the way.The feel of the tiger in the vicinity, is something which is beyond explanation.

Tiger sighting in south india is something which is very rare( as far as i heard ) and that brings in lots of excitement and anxiety as well.
Tired reading through the post ? Here are some photographs which is captured this weekend:

Par of wild-dogs which blocked our way:

This is really a bad time to visit forests,due extreme summer and forest fire.How ever captured some safari routes on our way

Herd of elephants:

Dry river-banks

Another team from jungle-resorts busy with safari

Finally a one day trip planned turned to be a complete 2 day trip and i reached back to bangalore on sunday midnight.
Sigh , i need sleep,very good sleep.

HSBC credit cards and their crazy customer care

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:10:01 GMT

My problems with credit-cards is a story which is never ending.Recently many news floating around of people loosing their cards,illegal usage of their card by who ever who flips it ,that even for an whopping amount.How if it's a premium gold card ? So these days carrying a credit-card is as risky as carrying gold/cash(analogy ).Credit cards were introduced and strongly marketed for making people's life easier where people no more have to worry about carrying piles of cash, zero debit balance,bla bla bla ...

I always cribbed the fact that what ever credit-cards i own (ICICI,Citibank) doesn't provide the facility of secure transactions via PIN numbers. Moreover no jack ass shopkeepers will verify the signatures these days.Between all these, one HSBC marketing chap happen to meet me a month back near my office.His way of talking was so convincing that i agreed to dedicate some time for him as to what ever this card has to offer and other extra features.First thing that caught my attention was unlike other banks,HSBC prompts for a 6-digit PIN number,every time you use this card for shopping(leave online shopping,that's already secured with PIN numbers).It was like my dream come true. Within no time, i decided to go for the card.

I confirmed the same with custo-care people and they were happy to come back with a big *YES*. After 15 days of formalities and back ground verification, i finally got the card + 6 digit PIN number in hand.Since that chap claimed of HSBC insisting on this secure card usage, noted down the PIN number and decided to change it sometime later which i feel comfortable and mainly secure .Last week on my kerala visit, used this card for our family shopping.End of 3-4 hour shopping,inaugurated the card for bill settlement.I was all set to key in the 6 digit PIN number.But to my dismay i saw the bill getting generated with out prompting for any PIN numbers as they claimed of. As always,the shop-wala asked me to sign the receipt,which i felt was just for the hell sake.

Rushed back home,called up HSBC custo-care, described my problem and they came back - "Wow sir, that's a good idea of implementing PIN for credit card, there by securing all future HSBC transactions.That way we are sure to see a happy HSBC customers . Why don't you write to HSBC head office with this creative idea. Is there anything else that we can help you with ? "

WTF ? What do they think ?
Didn't mean to target anyone via this post,but felt so sad and helpless after this incident.
And can't really help myself in saying this - HSBC sucks! Next time, a bank representative approaches you with a credit-card/personal loan, you know how to deal with it.

Back from a short break

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:25:13 GMT

Ah,finally back to Bangalore after a week trip to my hometown,Kerala. As i wrote here,about my hectic month of Feb,this was a good break for me.Something which i badly wanted.One week is not enough for anything,but again with the profession which am into, getting a week off is something which is really hard.Carried my camera gears along, expecting to click something over there.Moreover my Grandmom promised to arrange a kathakali session for me. But to my dismay, other plans worked out by my parents took an upper hand and ended up running out my time.Most of my time there went in shuttling between my relatives house and family shopping.Learned little bit of investment tips from dad and he helped in deciding on what mutual funds to take for my tax exemption. As usual he was busy with his checklists as to what shares to buy and what to sell. Mom on the other hand was busy preparing all beautiful dishes she knew. Over all, a nice stay with them.Just remembered - Good things always come in small packages :)

Although photography wise,there was not much luck, here are some of them:

Ranganathittu Birding

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 21:44:00 GMT

10th March'07 - Saturday early morning 4.15am , I headed to Ranganathittu Wildlife Sanctuary along with Nidhin to explore his brand new Canon 400mm f/4 lens which he bought a day back. I was as well excited about the place and an opportunity to do a hands on bird photography.This sanctuary, situated on the banks of the Kaveri River is very much inviting and for sure a delightful place to visit. Heard from Nidhin that it's a famous breeding ground for migratory birds from all across the earth. Some species of bird's that are known to this place are spoonbills, open bill storks, darters, white Ibis, egret, heron, partridge, river tern, stone plougher, and snake bird.

I am poor in remembering these bird's name ,nor good in bird photography.What ever little knowledge i have about them has been inherited from Sudhir Shivaram and this friend of mine,who are in to birding.We were welcomed to this sanctuary by a Brahminy Kite,who decided to pose in front of us for a change.With out wasting much time, we hired a boat and set forward for the great bird expedition.

Between all these, we spotted some one down at river eagerly waiting for his prey

Weekend photography

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 18:55:17 GMT

3rd Feb 2007 : 6.30 am ,a peaceful saturday morning , me and denny_mammen headed to Lal-Bagh botanical garden for some weekend photography session. After my first visit to this place,about a year ago and now,this place has changed a lot in terms of cleanliness,ambience and the way this park is structured. This time, it posed much more verdure and spotted so many joggers hitting the track and some photographers as well.

A tribute to heroes

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:04:19 GMT

Goo Goo Dolls and Limp Bizkit performed a live show,paying tribute to heroes(Sept 11),a track from Pink Floyd's wish you were here.

David Gilmour wrote the music based on Water's lyrics. It is one of the few Pink Floyd songs written this way, as Waters usually had music in mind for his lyrics when he took his songs to the band.
Absence-theme of this album remains the only song Roger Waters continued to play at his shows after leaving Pink Floyd.

An amazing track which one get to see for sure in every Bangalore pubs.And this remains to be one of my all time favorities.Something which i listen at my work place,home and while traveling

Download this video here

Life Update

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:00:51 GMT

Another bad month,which forced me to count on days. In fact was waiting for this feb to get over .
Lots of works of late ,both official as well personal. Wanted to do many things,but was left with no other choice than going with what people call *fate*. Highlights of this month goes this way:

09/02/07 : 8pm

Was online at home,busy with some movie downloads and in between my moto-razor interrupted me and my work with that kick-ass ringtone *doctors phone*.Asked my roomy to pick-up and he bounced back saying that's a call from my home.After the generic health-wealth talk exchanged with my mom & dad, I was asked to re-locate temporarily to my cousin sisters place.Her hubby flew to US of A for a 3 months project assignment from Siemens. They are constructing a brand new two-storied house in Bangalore and the contractor promised to wind-up all the construction work with in Feb. So till then his family had to stay back in Bangalore to make sure construction work goes according to the plan. She was accompanied by my aunt and her 2 year old son.She stays pretty near to my office.So the idea which my mom and dad came up with impressed me thinking of certain things -

Early sleep N' waking up late | No more hosur road traffic | No more running behind office shuttles | homely food

5th Feb'07, I packed my bags and rode to my sisters place. Dumped my baggages in the left room close to hall (where TV is kept) ,had a quick breakfast + small fight with her naughty kid and then cruised to office.First two days was good and worked out really well in terms of my office timings and food. But slowly i was realizing how good was my stay with roomies

-Late night talks | late night surfing | weekend photography/outing/shopping sessions .

Am i missing something in those lines ? Was not sure then to find an answer for this question which popped up.
A week further down, away from all those gave me an answer in fact.Like for everything there'z a mix of good and bad, in my case some good changes were demoed in terms of punctuality,conduct and traits.
Couldn't carry my camera along as it was with Anoop,a good childhood friend of mine.He's taken it for Aero India 2007 show.His Canon 20D decided not to work one fine day and taken to Dubai for servicing.He's enjoys the privilege of being *the* only one to use my camera and lens.Guess the same holds other way too.

On top of all these, had a hectic work schedule as well. Just remembered Murphy's law from one of
archanak's post. We,my team were pretty much on the lower side in terms of work in-flows,and witnessed a big tide,which almost took away our breath.Back to back releases that even on multiple products/platforms along with the normal work routine.Sigh !!! that's a tough call certainly ,given a 1-2 weeks time line.

This is once instance where i counted days,hours to pass-by. Now since am back to my own home and to my regular chores,thought of writing this life-update. In this time-period,if i hurt someone by not giving time nor attention or with something which am unaware of, hopefully "this post pours some light on it"

Something very handy

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:16:29 GMT

People who wanna explore Kerala,their heritage and history of this state, no more has to worry about carrying a 500 page booklet now.
Nithin, a very good photographer friend of mine, has come up with some thing creative - In fact a website which gives all these information at our fingertips.There you can find links to backwaters,forts,museums,waterfalls and in fact covers everything about kerala.

Introducing this space for all fellow LJ'ers : www.glimpsesofkerala.com

Good job Nithin !!!