Chintadhara - a thought process

Last weekend we went for team outing to McLeod Ganj , Himachal Pradesh. It was almost 2 years since my last escape from office. Hill Stations are always my favorite. And with weeks of hot climate in Delhi, the whole team wanted to go to a cool place. There are so many options around Delhi deciding the destination was a tough call, but everyone agreed that it has to be a non-regular spot. Many people know it by the name Dharamshala and actually McLeod is suburb of Dharamshala and also has second name 'Upper Dharamshala'. We started of from New Delhi on May 30 by train to Pathankot which we reached the next day. For Pathankot we took a cab for a 3-day to McLeod. It should take about 3 hours to reach McLeod but we reached in 6 hours thanks to Himachal RTO and the beautiful scenery on the way. McLeod is a very small place that you can mostly explore it on foot. The climate was very pleasant; exactly what we were expecting. Himalayas are so beautiful that you want to capture every ...

Almost after 8 years (6 years according to my mom, still the debate is on with her :)!!!) I finally got a chance to visit the eastern part of the country. The reason was my cousin's marriage . Wedding was in Vadodara and bou-bhaat (aka reception) was is Rishra , a suburb near Kolkata . Rishra is also my native place. My Thamma (paternal grandmother) and many relatives live there. It was quite a fun to visit after so many years and meeting so many people together. Most exciting thing was I was not able to recognize a single person. After meeting so many people and the rounds of introduction I was the totally confused. Boy! I have quite a big family tree. Cousin's marriage gave a good opportunity to meet many of them. In between all the wedding functions I did get some chance to visit Kolkata. Since my childhood days, I used to always love a drive through the city of Kolkata (Calcutta then) and crossing the Howrah Bridge was the main attraction. This time also it felt quite th...

This weekend I visited to the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala, Tirupati along with my relatives. I am not one with a religious bend of mind, so I would not be going to temples by myself but I surely love if someone pulls me along. Also this trip gave me a chance to go out of Chennai. We took a morning train from Chennai to Tirupati on Sunday and reached Tirumala by noon. That day we kind of relaxed and did some sight-seeing. Our Darshan at the Sri Venkateswara Temple was scheduled for next day 10am. So had our Darshan at the temple on Monday. This time it was really good. Last time I had gone to Tirupati it was lot crowded so could not stand for even a second in front of the idol. But this time I stood there for for good half a minute. After Darshan we relaxed a bit in the temple complex, before returning to Chennai by the evening train. Actually train journey was something I enjoyed a lot. I was traveling by train after a long time, I guess 4-5 years. It was fun! Also took few ph...

One day late though :) hope you all had a great Valentine's Day with you loved ones! I am posting here after a long time, in fact my last post was at Christmas last year. Since then life has been bit busy which kept me away from my blog. Now we are in a new year, hope you had a great year till now and wish you a happier and successful year in days to come! On my side many things happened since my last post. My room-mate got married. I went to Vizag, A.P. to attend his marriage ceremonies. We had a nice time at his marriage. This was the first time I was seeing a south-indian marriage live, so was great fun. From there we had a one-day trip to Araku , a small hill station near Vizag. Beautiful place and awesome company. We all had lots of fun there, you can get a glimpse of it in the photos below. I will end this post with my Araku photos and wish to write the next one pretty soon. Araku album link: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName= album30

It was quite a while I went to Bangalore last. That too last time had office work so did not get any time to catch up with friends. This Christmas was a long weekend with Monday being holiday due to Christmas. So I was eagerly planning to escape from Chennai. That's when Bangalore folks called up and said they were planning for a trip for the weekend. But even that did not happen. But then there are so many things to do in and around bangalore. We decided for a 1-day trip to Sivanasamudram (aka Sivasamudram) , a falls about 120km from Bangalore, on Saturday. Sunday we roamed around the city with lunch stop at M. G. Road and wrap with a Bhagam Bhag night show at Innovative. Christmas day start with visit to the Infant Jesus Church and I winded-up my trip with a visit to the Forum . Here are the photos of my trip ... link: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album27

This time I was at home on the occasion of Deepawali and Kali Pujo, after many years. And interesting fact is that I had mentioned last time I came home that I would come on Diwali next time, but had forgotten all about it. I think this what we call destiny. Here are few pics which I took with my parents at our home in NTPC-Kawas and Kali Pujo celebration at NTPC-Jhanor, about 3hrs from Kawas. If you have problems with the slideshow below please use the album link: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album26

Just back from a jumbo tour of Salem, Yercaud and Kodaikanal. As often I dont have words to describe it but it was no else a dream seen with open eyes. Whatever we saw was too beautiful to forget. We wanted that those sight stay with us after we are back in Chennai and we did just that. We had a digicam with one 256MB card and one 1GB card. So we made full use of it and lots and lots of photos ... final number was around 1300+. In the process we exhausted 32 Duracell batteries and 4 Everready batteries. But we never had the realization about the amount of pics we were taking during the trip. There it was like point and shoot anything and everything. Our entire collection was 2 CD huge. And when I was selecting the ones which I wanted in my album, the number crossed 600+. So uploading them became a small issue; but that job is now successfully completed. Checkout the photos ... Salem & Yercaud - http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/ view_album.php?set_albumName=album15 Kodaikanal - h...

After a long time, first time since I left NCST, all of us were at the same place on the same time. We were missing some who could make it due to the pressures of life. Unfortunately it did not start as per the original plan but thats life. But as its said all's well that ends well . We were sitting in our official taxi, though it was bigger taxi this time, with the good old kannadi driver at the wheels. Rest is a long story which you can see in the photo album ... hoping for another one soon with all absentees ...