Shephard of Hampi

I woke up late and to make my day worse the breakfast offered at KSTDC Mayura Bhuveneshwai also didn’t go well with my mind. I hate late mornings when I am on a trip!

With a bit of anger, I ditched my friends and went out solo with my backpack & water bottle on a very sunny day at around 11 am.

After a km walk, I reached abandoned Gangatti Jain temple, neither there was a deity not the people… I took a walk around… sat… took a round in my online world- gmail. FB, insta, twitter & whatsapp- world had not changed!

I had started to sweat out because of the scorching sun. I gathered my energy and started walking to Bhima’s gate, 500 m to another no man’s land. I loved the silence & my own company.

Here I saw beautiful carving of Bhima with Sowgandhika flower and the fort. Visual stories of 13th century was running on my mind as I walked around a bit till I bumped onto a dark man wearing pure white shirt with his red earphones on & sitting on a ruin mantap. I said hi & initiated a conversation… you know stories are something which I am always curious to listen.

He started sharing his journey with story of his grandpa who come to build Tungabadra dam from Tamil Nadu. And moved on to his adventures of dismantling and mantling old structures for archeological department… which he said is never ending work!

He was not that curious about me and he only checked where I came from, what did I do in Hampi & where I am headed to- most asked existential question indeed…

I said I wanted to go to Pattabirama temple where Rama crowned Sugriva or that sort and on road it showed 3 km on the google maps. I asked him if there is a shortcut to reach avoiding high fare seeking auto rickshaw cynosures and he said there is…

the one which the shepherds use…

Throughout this trip I was fascinated by management techniques shepherds deploy to take care of their herd in a 1:100- on keeping their flock together and keeping all of them happy- for entire full day- quite a feat!

And now I am hoping a shepherd comes to Bhima’s gate & takes me to Pattabirama temple through a short cut- dedicated for shepherds and his sheeps!

Clock ticked 12:!5… close to 20 min of staring at the pathway… then came the brown dog first… followed a faded blue lungi clad shepherd carrying a small faded yellow bag on his faded grey shirt. My constructor friend made a request to shepherd to help me cover 90% of the path. he obliged…

Next 45 min was divine…

Shepherd always walked 10 steps ahead of me… always… maybe this is what he does to his seeps as well, maybe… he also walked at a constant acceleration leaving me no option to catch up with his pace… he never wanted to converse- maybe. We only exchanged welcome hello and final good-bye when we finished- only verbal conversation that we had… And in between it was just silence!

We walked through big big stones to heavy bushes to thorns to ups and downs to some ruins of 15th century history till we reached Tungabadra river reservoir. My shirt was dripping sweat… Dog guide went straight to river to take a dip…

So did the shepherd… he washed himself clean & filled up his bootle. Like his constant smile, his pace probably had built lot of endurance for these trails to him… this entire journey we never spoke… but I guess I had received a lot learning & invitation to self reflect…. my reflection in crystal clear water was inviting…

Shepherd wasted no time as he had to get back to herd which was may be 100m far. He made few sounds, just to intimate the group that he’s gonna be back soon, maybe… He tied his lungi to thigh length & smiled at me… that’s all… he probably said goodbye & wished me luck to where I am headed to, maybe… that’s all… and went off.. & the brown dog followed…

I dropped my bag, took off my hat & bowed at him with gratitude. I stood for a while, looked at the blue clear horizon and went to kiss the river. Quite a few things were running in my mind & I was experiencing certain shepherd wisdom in silence- he had taught me about trails, about ups and downs, about pace, about people, about management, about Hampi and about myself- all in silence. I took a dip too… trying to catch my breath in the river flow and also to tune to the flow itself!

I sat down riverside, took my book & while I heard river flow, I tried letting my words flow like the river…

All stories need not be told…
Some stories could be told…
In silence…
Some stories could be shown…
In presence…
Life is all about these stories…
some told, some shown, some lived…
some unknown…
While walking with constant pace and smile,
All stories need not be told…

This is what I could reflect on Shepherd wisdom… We just walk… we are neither anyone to get curious about other stories, nor we are judges to make our decisions of who’s right or wrong. we just walk… sometimes alone… sometimes with the brown dog… sometimes with the flowing river… just like shepherd of Hampi!

Jaipur: Exploring Royal Marvels of the Pink City

As part of my study tour to Digantar, I happened to be in Jaipur, the famous pink city, and also it happened to be my first time in Rajasthan. I wasted no chance to explore as much I could! Even though I was there in the month of March, early summers, heat was still bearable and I loved being there. I could not see all of it and I have promised myself to comeback to see Rajasthan soon! You know- Jai Jai connection also works!

Welcome to Jaipur

The evening I reached Jaipur, I took an uber to Amer fort! It was such a delight to see the whole stretch of fort wall beautifully decorate the Aravali hills. A small climb up in the fort leads to spacious palace waranda. We bought tickets there and went further up to explore the Diwan-i-Aam, or "Hall of Public Audience", the Diwan-i-Khas, or "Hall of Private Audience” and the Sheesh Mahal or the mirror palace. The view from any window of these palaces are just breathtaking- where you can sight most part of the city, lakes, roads and more importantly, the breeze that is hitting you soothes you immensely! Hammams or Turkish bathing tub definitely remains in your memory and so does the the maggi & chai you had while sitting in the park below!

Hawa Mahal

From Amer fort, I went to Chokhi Dhani for dinner. Village set up inside is quite fascinating and before we explored it, we treated ourselves with authentic Rajasthani thali- which consisted of signature dal bati churma to amazing kadi! It’s amazing to enjoy these folk arts and dance- once your tummy is full and there is rope beds to rest and there is open sky with twinkling stars to gaze… life is good!

Sheesh Mahal in Amer Fort

Next day, after work, we had a chance to visit Nahargarh fort, which is located next to Amer and also in good altitude. By chance, we visited beautiful amphitheater first, which happens to be the masti ki paathshala of Rang De Basanti (RDB) movie. As we walked ahead ignoring the wax museum, the royal Madhvendra palace standing tall with few tries with no leaves- made us skip some beats! Once you enter the palace, the sight is mesmerising. Of all the palaces I have seen, I would rate this one in top of my list. We spent next hour exploring the palace and climbing up the terrace for more breathtaking views of Jaipur! We spotted Jal Mahal or “Palace in the middle of a lake” from there and we did take a stroll at Jal Mahal in the evening. There are good number of autowallahs to take you down to city from Nahargarh fort and we hired one. He was courteous enough to show us the spot where Aamir Khan was film-shot drinking and falling to lake in RDB and also to stop at a chai point in middle of nowhere where you can sip the chai with hill breeze and galaxy view of Jaipur with Aravali!

Madhvendra Palace

Hawa Mahal, situated in the centre of pink city is the iconic place and most of us would have seen it’s structure looking like a crown in many advertisements. I used cloak room here to park my luggage before I took the stroll inside. It’s beautiful to catch glimpse of the busy streets, Jantar Mantar and rest of city palace complex from the Hawa Mahal, which is in the terrace of the whole structure. 

I missed being at Jaigarh fort and checking out Jantar Mantar in detail. Ofcourse, I missed a lot on catching up with light and sound shows at all the above locations I explored. And there were so many buildings with historical importance in every nook and corner- it caught my attention but could not get time. So there is always a next time!

Masti Ki Paathshala

While in Jaipur- I indeed had a good feast of food. It started with Chokhi Dhani to Rawat Mistan Bhandar to Khandwa Haveli to Falahaar in Bapu bazaar which offered sabudana specials to roadside poha to sugarcane juice to lot of nimbu paani- you know avoiding innumerable Cafe Coffee Days was a challenge and supporting local entrepreneurs to beat the heat was delightful!

This blog would be incomplete if you don't speak about the awesome internet wi-fi supported by Google at the Jaipur railway station! What speed! Experienced Digital India for sure here :)

Coimbatore trip: IoT, Conversations, Dosas and Infusing Goodness to Business

I had heard so much about Coimbatore & had also passed couple of times, but never got a chance to stay. I knew it’s famous for education, manufacturing industries & known as “Manchester of South India" due to its cotton production and textile industries. I was not surprised when PM included Coimbatore in 100 smart cities. I spent good 4 days teaching and exploring Coimbatore. When I asked Professor Soundarrajan (thank you sir for all the assistance!) what is that famous thing which I can take home, he told “Cotton Saree and Krishna sweets Mysore Pak” in a single breath! And I managed to take second thing home!

Chiranjeev Brahma (CJ), Country manager for University Alliance, SAP & more interestingly, a wonderful creative friend was primarily reason behind this trip. Thank you so much for making this happen! We drove together from Bangalore to Coimbatore enjoying nonstop conversation on education, society, marketing & any/every topic under sun! We didn’t realize we had spoken for 7 hours straight! I was put up at PSG college guest house- which for first 2 days offered me cold water bath & on third day- fuming hot water from all water outlets, including flush in toilet! Otherwise, I enjoyed my stay in the guest house munching on dosa overdose.

Aravind Eye care visit

I was there to conduct Internet of Things Workshop with 42 Professors from 18 engineering colleges along with Vinay C. Workshop also included hands on exercises using Arduino boards and SAP HANA Cloud Platform. This was as part of the faculty development program that PSG College of Technology organized. Next 2 days we were with 60 students from PSG Institute of Technology and Applied Research repeating the show! Thank you Kavitha ma’am for all the support. I also clubbed this opportunity to meet Aru & new startup friends in TiE summit for Education Entrepreneurs at Forge accelerator located in KCT College.

8am Ooty Botanical Garden

I had my best time in Coimbatore when I visited Aravind Eye Hospital. I had studied the model as part of laddership circle & I was just excited to be there. Thanks to Uma ma’am, Ranjith & Sangeetha for showing & explaining the fascinating model in 3 hours. I had lot to take away from experience- making healthcare affordable at 50 INR & looking at volume of 6 lakh operations with twin bed innovations+workforce empowerment+free treatment+same quality! Infusing goodness to business- salute to you Dr. V!

Coimbatore trip comes when I am looking forward for a serviceful goodness roadtrip :)

Next exciting moment came when CJ, Vinay & I decided to go to Ooty which is 3 hours drive via Coonor for only 5 hours. Crazy! Decision came while eating dinner at Tangerine sizzlers. We were just unwinding and the idea stuck us- thanks to which, I had amazing time visiting botanical garden for early morning walk and pedal boat ride in the lake. Waking up at 3.30am on a Sunday was truly worthwhile…

We did some incredible fun things together- go karting to bowling to checking Avinashi road mall to exploring Marutamalai temple to having dinner at Taj to eating ghee rava masala dosa at Sree Annapoorna to long deep meaningful conversations! So much learning- Coimbatore trip is going to remain very close to my heart and all those who made this happen- deepest gratitude and smiles :)

Kolkata: With Joy to Adobe of Peace

Taking leave from my routine job and Mentor India work, I was in West Bengal for close to 9 days and got a chance to experience bong life a bit. It took no time for me to take note of ambassador times here. Hindustan Motors may have shut down, but the legacy of their yellow taxis don’t seem to die. I guess, it’s the same with colonial British establishments. Where in earth can you take a tram to handpulled auto to shared auto to ferry to yellow ambassador taxi to 1980’s Tata bus to anywhere you want to reach! Here goes my travelogue:

Kolkata or Calcutta is surely city of joy. I had boarded flight to Kolkata from Bangalore with a disappointment that I missed being at India Pakistan world T20 match happening at Eden Gardens & my hotel, Eagle Palace, being in Esplanade {took some time to digest that central Kolkata had a unique name christened by British}, was at walkable distance from the stadium! But a friend can turn disappointment into excitement. That is what exactly happened after I made friends with my co-passenger Nabarun! He was shifting his base back to his hometown and we had long conversation on socio-political-historical-cultural aspects of Calcutta. Such a delight! And the best part came when he dropped me off to my hotel in his ambassador. Thank you Nabarun!

A photo posted by Jaideep Rao (@jaideeprao) on Mar 28, 2016 at 12:09am PDT

Post checking in, I took a walk to Eden Gardens to meet my friends, Supraj & Aditi, who were there in attendance. I could spot numerous hawkers, roadside eateries, those selling milk & dhoiyi (curd or dahi), and ofcouse sweets- rosgullas to sondesh! It was evident that city had many in below poverty line. But I could find the old charm and happiness here.

Next morning, we took a 2.5 hrs train to Bolpur from Sealdah. We took an auto to place which I always wanted to be- Shantineketan, the university town established by Gurudev, 1st Indian to win Nobel, Rabindranath Tagore. Shantineketan is as beautiful as Tagore’s speeches or poems or thoughts. First we had breakfast in a hut where they served luchi, gugni, bread, butter and chai- amazing! Before taking a walk in spacious plush green beautiful Viswa-Bharathi University campus (that is post 12.30 pm, entrance only in afternoon for public), we explored very knowledgeable museum and Uttarayan complex-which had combined entry fees. Tagore’s letters, his awards, his article snippets and his poems played in background- make the museum special. Uttarayan complex has a garage and residence of Tagore- Udayan, Konark, Punascha and Udichi. These houses are marvelous with big windows, spacious rooms, ventilation, red oxide floors and beautiful gardens- a poet’s retreat!

Post lunch, we explored Bhubandanga bazaar which sold handicrafts to artworks and post that boarded train back to Kolkata. Same night, I had an overnight train to NJP, aka, New Jalpaiguri station, which is 3 hour away from Darjeeling. Road to Darjeeling and things I did in Darjeeling is in a separate blog post here.

Primary reason for this trip was Sandakhpu trek, which is oldest trek in India and highest peak in West Bengal. Trek is a journey in itself and surely deserves an exclusive blog post!

After I returned from NJP to Kolkata, I had 3 hours before I caught my flight to Bangalore. Making most of it, we took a bus to Dalhousie from Sealdah railway station. Dalhousie is close to Esplanade and it has trams running on the road which is quite a sight. We enjoyed walking from Dalhousie to Fairy jetty across colonial Writer’s block. We took a 5 INR ticket “Launch” or boat to Howrah railway station overseeing marvelous century old Howrah Bridge built across Hooghly river, distributary of River Ganga! It was lovely to see so many passengers use the waterway to reach their destination. From Howrah railway station, I headed towards airport dropping in Haldirams on the way. Despite hot & humid weather of Kolkata, I enjoyed being and travelling here & will look forward to come back to explore more!

{Thanks to Team KnowYourStar.com for allowing to go on a vacation. Special Thanks to Supraj for making this happen. Thanks to Akash Chopra, Saikat Pal, Manthan Shah, Rakesh & Sujay da, Pranjal Parashar, Shishir Sachdev, Vamsi Krishna Manchi and  Malav Shah for making Sandakphu special. Thanks to Sabry Ali for that lovely evening conversation}

Darjeeling: Colorful Calmness for Chai with Queen

Darjeeling is famously known as “Queen of Hills” and I could easily feel the way air changed as we crossed Sukhna military base & climbed up to Kurseong from NJP railway station in our private vehicle. On road it is 3 hour distance, but if you do have sufficient time- close to 7 hours, do take toy train from NJP to Darjeeling, aka, Darjeeling Himalayan Railways (DHR), which is indeed breath taking. Remarkably, DHR is world heritage site and established in 1881 by British. The toy train track runs along the road and I was delighted to spot the smoke omitting locomotive pass by twice! Names of station are quite interesting- Tung, Sonada, Ghum and tells you that you are entering Gorkhaland, on which culture stands out with Tibetan colors, Nepali language, monasteries, generosity, happiness and amazing food!

A photo posted by Jaideep Rao (@jaideeprao) on Mar 21, 2016 at 8:20am PDT

We stopped at Batasia loop, which is just after Ghum station. Ghum station is in the highest altitude & on a clear day you should be able to spot Sleeping Buddha or Kanchanjunga from there. When I crossed Ghum, clouds had started forming and has less than 10m visibility. Temperature had dropped from 30 c to 6/8 c. Oh, coming back, Batasia loop is a 5km long spiral engineering marvel made to help the train climb up from low altitude to height of Ghum railway station. Batasia loop also has a memorial garden to the Gorkha soldiers of the Indian Army who sacrificed their lives after the Indian Independence in 1947. Batasia loop is surely a must visit!

I stayed in couple of hotels in Darjeeling- Hotel Seven Seventeen and Sonar Bangla- both had courteous staff and very well maintained space. I recommend both of them. Seven Seventeen have their own restaurant which served amazing Tibetan food and Sonar Bangla is right behind Glenary’s, which is must visit place for bakery junk food & Darjeeling tea. Next to it is Emami Frank Ross café that interestingly serves some amazing south Indian food! Both Glenary’s & Frank Ross have amazing ambience and are in Mall road that ends in Chowrastha, which reminded me of Shimla! I did some accessory shopping for the Sandakphu trek from Mall market and when I returned, did some for my home!

Prime attraction of Darjeeling is undoubtedly Padmaja Naidu Zoological Park and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI). Don’t miss out on animals which are only found in Himalayan ranges at the zoo. Red pandas, Himalayan black bear and snow leopards are the show stoppers. I was really impressed with the zoo & would rate up above any zoo which I have visited.

I can vouch on HMI museum that it won’t let you exit without the wow feeling. HMI was established in 1954 by PM Nehru and had Tenzing Norgay, first person to ascent Mt. Everest with Edmund Hillary, as it’s first director. HMI museum has very inspiring collection of accessories used by summiteer’s, their lives, what it means to scale peak on peak, Himalayan culture and has put in place the perspective of joy of mountaineering. HMI also has Samadhi & giant statue of Tenzing Norgay. We spent close to 2 hours to cover both in detail- this pace is truly astonishing!

Last place I visited in Darjeeling was Japanese Temple and Peace Pagoda, which is 4kms away from Chowrastha. Peace Pagoda is very beautiful with Buddha’s life depicted in the parikrama (means when you take a round). Four statues of Buddha emit peace radiance here. Japanese temple, established by Fujii Guruji, is a lovely place and for me it was lot of learning going through life & thoughts of Fujii Guruji, a Buddhist monk who lived 100 years!

Darjeeling is indeed a lovely place with friendly people. I would cherish taking shared taxi to eating momo & thukpa to walking & climbing up/down to navigate between places. Queen, always be the best!