A Vagrant's Sojourn - Part 1 - Yamunotri

“Vacation is what you take when you can't take what you've been taking any longer.” Earl Winson

It has been more than 10 months since my last vacation. My wallet was not fat enough for one, but my mind was tired going through the relentless urban hoops. Vacation to me meant getting away from incessant clamor of mobile phones, relentlessly pouring emails, never ending to-do list, neurotic newspapers and media, and of all the maddening city life and traffic. Phew……

Where do I go and for how long was the question in my mind. The last vacation was along the seashore and this time I wanted an adventurous one and on a different terrain. Through this wandering I wanted to re-establish connect which once existed between man and nature.

My pick was Gharwal (Uttarakhand), a ravishing display of natural beauty. Snow capped peaks punctuated with coniferous vegetation, frigid rivers flowing through the deep ravines, oxygen rich air filled with the aroma from devadaru trees, and silent valleys resonating with the call of wild beetles.

The ten hour journey on the first day from Rishikesh on the gorgeous mountains of Gharwal through Dehradun and Mussorie ended at Barkot. Barkot is the winter town for all inhabitants on this peak of Gharwal.

Barkot is a small town situated at 1300 meters above sea level. Surprisingly this small dusty mountain town has a small bank, a post office and even a small market. Though guest houses have no heat, their hospitality and service makes Gharwal Mandal guest houses a comfortable place to retire.

The contrasting landscapes (green mountains, dusty plains, and frigid aquamarine waters of Yamuna) are treat for the tired urban mind and eyes which are used to billboards and concrete jungles. Yamuna finds her way through deep gorges and finally smothers the dusty plains of Barkot.

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen. ~Benjamin Disraeli

Travel to Yamunotri is not that simple as it sounds. Serpentine roads on the mountains are narrow and treacherous. Mountains often get dislodged and pose a big risk to tourists, but wanderers somehow find a way out.

Here is one such adventure. There was a landslide 5 Kms after Sayanachatti and 5 kms before Janakichatti. The actual trek to Yamuntri begins at Janakichatti, but this landslide brought life to a standstill well before Janakichatti. Some decided to climb the mountain to get to the other side, while most of them decided to go back.

I was one among the brave few who decided to ascend the mountain on a mule. The climb through the jungle was very scary given the rugged narrow terrain and deep gorges. For people like me who thought mules are stupid creatures, here was the moment to change paradigms. Mules are the only modes of transportation on such rugged terrains.

On all fours they balance their weight like a gymnast. He would always take the path of least resistance, who taught him? I marvelled looking at his scientifically engineered brain. Every step that they take defines life and death. I recollected the definition of Horse power and I was able to feel the horse power at work. I was dependent on his brawn and brain.

The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. ~G.K. Chesterton

Snow had already arrived and people were wrapped up in winter clothing. This place is open only 6 months a year due to severe winters.

Here is the picture of the Yamunotri peak taken while I was traveling on the mule.

I don’t know if I was taking a calculated risk or a stupid decision to ascend the mountain through the jungles on a mule, but once I was on top of the mule there was no going back. I held on to the mule tightly and he went up with a jerk and every now and then I had to swallow my guts.

Here I am smiling, but I can still recollect those Lilly-livered moments in life. God alone knows how many times I have called him while on the mule and staring at the valley below.

Of all the peaks on Gharwal, the trek to Yamunotri is the most tedious and grueling. A 0.7 KM ascend and 6 KM trek from Janakichetti brings you to Yamunotri. Yamunotri situated at an elevation of about 3,235 meters was my first destination. Yamunotri in the direction opposite to Gangotri, the road bifurcates from a place called Dharasu, between Rishikesh – Uttarkashi and goes on to Yamunotri. The shrine can also be visited via Mussorie and Barkot.

Bhairav Baba Mandir is the halfway point to Yamunotri. Situated on a hairpin bend, we get a scenic view on Yamunotri. October is off season on these ranges and people usually keep away due to low temperatures. But for those of you who want to spend time alone in the company of your woolens and Mother Nature, October offers the best sojourn. It takes 3 hours to make that 6 km climb to Yamunotri.

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within. ~Lillian Smith

Standing on the foothills of Yamunotri one can relish the beauty of the clouds blanketing the peak, hear the symphony in the trickling Yamuna.

Gharwal Mountain ranges are blessed with numerous glaciers and sulphur springs. These sulphur springs offer a great relief from body pains and bruises. Haven’t you noticed that most of your skin creams and bruise ointments contain sulphur? These hot springs also serve as Jacuzzi for tired travelers. A bathing ghat built on Gaurikund at Yamunotri, right below the temple. A few feet away you have the frigid Yamuna flowing from the peak – a peaceful coexistence, the best contrasts in nature. This is the only place where you get abundant warm water in the mountains.

Suryakund is the steaming hot spring at Yamunotri. People use this kund to make their meal, an energy efficient eco friendly cooking opportunity. Rice and Aloo wrapped in a towel is lowered into the kund where the temperature of the spring remains at 95 deg C and serves as a pressure cooker. The cook cycle is just 20 minutes. The cooked rice and aloo is offered it to Mother Yamuna before distributed as prashad to devotees.

Pandaji completely covered in warm clothing from head to toe performing pooja at Yamunaji Mandir. Yamunaji is aroopa (doesn’t have a human form) and is worshipped in the form of a stone. She is believed to be the sister of Yama (Lord of death) and daughter of Surya. By offerings prayers at this shrine one gets absolved of all sins and gains the power to conquer death.

It was quiet on the top with absolutely no travelers at this time of the year. I descended the mountain just before dusk after spending couple of hours at the temple. Surprisingly I found a few ravines at this altitude. As always they were raiding through the garbage cans and offerings made to Yamunaji. Rituals in Hinduism have always revolved around feeding animals and taking care of the ecosystem.

There are no cottages at Yamunotri and one has trek back 6kms and halt at Janakichatti, foothills of Yamunotri for the night. Room heaters and electricity are a luxury. One has to seek refuge under multiple blankets with the complete winter wear to keep warm for the night.

If you are wondering whom I spent the cold nights with……

He was my friend for the night……

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing." ~Daniel J. Boorstin

Back From Vacation.....

I had a great time travelling in Neelkant and Nandadevi peaks in Himalayas. Snowcovered, solid and serene peaks were energy boosters for the mind and soul. I hope you will enjoy the pictures and share your comments.


http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/1EnrouteYamunotri
http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/1Yamunotri

http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/2EnrouteGangotri
http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/2Gangotri


http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/3EnrouteKedarnath
http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/3Kedarnath

http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/4EnrouteBadrinath
http://picasaweb.google.com/kdbulls/4Badrinath

On vacation....

I am vacationing on Devadaru mountains aka Himalayas from Sep 28 till Oct 13. I will be trekking to Gangotri, Kedarnath and drive to Badrinath and Yamunotri. I will validate the recent study on melting glaciers at Gangotri. :-)

I will share my experiences after I get back. In the meantime enjoy my time away.

Everything has a price in life....

6 months ago fans and press were very rude and obnoxious towards Dhoni and his team mates when they lost the World Cup.



Six months later now fans and media are in praise of Dhoni and team....

Isn't kindness a basic human value and should it be expressed only during success? Are we guaranteed of success in every effort and should we be ridiculed and punished if met with failure? Is this something Dhoni and teammates must put up with?

Emails, chats - Lives in the cyber world

Sometimes I tell my friends don't try to snoop and find out everything that is happening in other's life, because you may not be able to sleep after the investigation. I have also asked some of my colleagues if they would feel comfortable to share their email accounts and passwords, some said yes and some said no. I dont know the reason behind the "No", but may be there is a story. Here is a story from NY Times

Mobile phone and emails are the villians.....

Anyway this article was from NY Times....


By BRAD STONE
Published: September 15, 2007

The age-old business of breaking up has taken a decidedly Orwellian turn, with digital evidence like e-mail messages, traces of Web site visits and mobile telephone records now permeating many contentious divorce cases.

Jolene Barten-Bolender says she discovered a tracking device in a wheel well of the family car.
Spurned lovers steal each other’s BlackBerrys. Suspicious spouses hack into each other’s e-mail accounts. They load surveillance software onto the family PC, sometimes discovering shocking infidelities.

Divorce lawyers routinely set out to find every bit of private data about their clients’ adversaries, often hiring investigators with sophisticated digital forensic tools to snoop into household computers.

“In just about every case now, to some extent, there is some electronic evidence,” said Gaetano Ferro, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, who also runs seminars on gathering electronic evidence. “It has completely changed our field.”

Privacy advocates have grown increasingly worried that digital tools are giving governments and powerful corporations the ability to peek into peoples’ lives as never before. But the real snoops are often much closer to home.

“Google and Yahoo may know everything, but they don’t really care about you,” said Jacalyn F. Barnett, a Manhattan-based divorce lawyer. “No one cares more about the things you do than the person that used to be married to you.”

Most of these stories do not end amicably. This year, a technology consultant from the Philadelphia area, who did not want his name used because he has a teenage son, strongly suspected his wife was having an affair. Instead of confronting her, the husband installed a $49 program called PC Pandora on her computer, a laptop he had purchased.

The program surreptitiously took snapshots of her screen every 15 seconds and e-mailed them to him. Soon he had a comprehensive overview of the sites she visited and the instant messages she was sending. Since the program captured her passwords, the husband was also able to get access to and print all the e-mail messages his wife had received and sent over the previous year.

What he discovered ended his marriage. For 11 months, he said, she had been seeing another man — the parent of one of their son’s classmates at a private school outside Philadelphia. The husband said they were not only arranging meetings but also posting explicit photos of themselves on the Web and soliciting sex with other couples.

The husband, who like others in this article was reached through his lawyer, said the decision to invade his wife’s privacy was not an easy one. “If I were to tell you I have a pure ethical conscience over what I did, I’d be lying,” he said. But he also pointed to companies that have Internet policies giving them the right to read employee e-mail messages. “When you’re in a relationship like a marriage, which is emotional as well as, candidly, a business, I think you can look at it in the same way,” he said.

When considering invading their spouse’s privacy, husbands and wives cite an overriding desire to find out some secret. One woman described sensing last year that her husband, a Manhattan surgeon, was distant and overly obsessed with his BlackBerry.
She drew him a bubble bath on his birthday and then pounced on the device while he was in the tub. In his e-mail messages, she found evidence of an affair with a medical resident, including plans for them to meet that night.

A few weeks later, after the couple had tried to reconcile, the woman gained access to her husband’s America Online account (he had shared his password with her) and found messages from a mortgage company. It turned out he had purchased a $3 million Manhattan condominium, where he intended to continue his liaison.

“Every single time I looked at his e-mail I felt nervous,” the woman said. “But I did anyway because I wanted to know the truth.”

Being on the receiving end of electronic spying can be particularly disturbing. Jolene Barten-Bolender, a 45-year-old mother of three who lives in Dix Hills, N.Y., said that she was recently informed by AOL and Google, on the same day, that the passwords had been changed on two e-mail accounts she was using, suggesting that someone had gained access and was reading her messages. Last year, she discovered a Global Positioning System, or G.P.S., tracking device in a wheel well of the family car.

She suspects her husband of 24 years, whom she is divorcing.
“It makes me feel nauseous and totally violated,” Ms. Barten-Bolender said, speculating that he was trying to find out if she was seeing anyone. “Once anything is written down, you have to know it could be viewed by someone looking to invade or hurt you.”

Ms. Barten-Bolender’s husband and his lawyer declined to discuss her allegations.
Divorce lawyers say their files are filled with cases like these. Three-quarters of the cases of Nancy Chemtob, a divorce lawyer in Manhattan, now involve some kind of electronic communications. She says she routinely asks judges for court orders to seize and copy the hard drives in the computers of her clients’ spouses, particularly if there is an opportunity to glimpse a couple’s full financial picture, or a parent’s suitability to be the custodian of the children.
Lawyers must navigate a complex legal landscape governing the admissibility of this kind of electronic evidence. Different laws define when it is illegal to get access to information stored on a computer in the home, log into someone else’s e-mail account, or listen in on phone calls.
Divorce lawyers say, however, if the computer in question is shared by the whole family, or couples have revealed their passwords to each other, reading a spouse’s e-mail messages and introducing them as evidence in a divorce case is often allowed.

Lynne Z. Gold-Bikin, a Pennsylvania divorce lawyer, describes one client, a man, who believed his wife was engaging in secret online correspondence. He found e-mail messages to a lover in Australia that she had sent from a private AOL account on the family computer. Her lawyer then challenged the use of this evidence in court. Ms. Gold-Bikin’s client won the dispute and an advantageous settlement.

Lawyers say the only communications that are consistently protected in a spouse’s private e-mail account are the messages to and from the lawyers themselves, which are covered by lawyer-client privilege.

Perhaps for this reason, divorce lawyers as a group are among the most pessimistic when it comes to assessing the overall state of privacy in the digital age.

“I do not like to put things on e-mail,” said David Levy, a Chicago divorce lawyer. “There’s no way it’s private. Nothing is fully protected once you hit the send button.”

Ms. Chemtob added, “People have an expectation of privacy that is completely unrealistic.”
James Mulvaney agrees. A private investigator, Mr. Mulvaney now devotes much of his time to poking through the computer records of divorcing spouses, on behalf of divorce lawyers. One of his specialties is retrieving files, like bank records and e-mail messages to secret lovers, that a spouse has tried to delete.

“Every keystroke on your computer is there, forever and ever,” Mr. Mulvaney said.
He had one bit of advice. “The only thing you can truly erase these things with is a specialty Smith & Wesson product,” he said. “Throw your computer into the air and play skeet with it.”

Satham Podathey

Director Vasanth has made earnest efforts to make Satham Podathey, a so called tamil thriller, something that the industry rarely gets to see. There is definitely a social message in this movie since the script is based on a real life incident. But does the movie convey the message in the right tone and at the right time? Does the movie credit or discredit Vasanth? Will it make noise in the box office?

Sh……sh….sh…..

Handling thriller subjects is not new to Vasanth, but he has miserably failed trying to handle too many storylines in a single movie. The narration pattern was not convincing. Predictable plots, too many storylines, immiscible music and script, lack of emotions in a few pivotal characters makes this movie feel amateurish. What happened to the KB DNA in Vasanth?

The story is simple unlike the way it was handled on the screen. It is about an impotent alcoholic married who marries Bhanu without informing her or her family of his condition. Though her family asks her to walk out of the marriage she believes that Ratnavelu too didn't know he was impotent till after their marriage. Bhanu, a women from the old school decides to stay with him and instead adopt a kid. Her suspicion grows when he asks her to return the adopted child and reaches the flash point when she attends the call from “Alcohol anonymous”. Subsequent events and cruelty by her husband brings an end to the marriage.

Bhanu’s brother, Raghav comes in as a walking stick lending support when she is decrepit. Then the usual sympathy wave creeps in the reel. Raghav’s friend, Ravi sympathizes and decides to marry Bhanu. After a few reels of chases romance blooms between the two. When we all thought the grey clouds had all gone by, Rathnavel re-enters their lives. The happy marriage turns awry and leaves viewers gaping.

Painful moments:
1. I always thought blood was thicker than water, but that is not the case with Bhanu’s family. Her mother, father and brother completely failed to emote through out the movie. Bhanu’s brother reacts like a third person when he tries break the news of his sister’s death and when he tries to comfort Ravi after Bhanu’s death.

2. Music and story must always be hand in glove. All Songs except Idhayam Pesukirathey fail to fit in with the script. Background score took away the fizz in the script. Why did Vasanth have to force in so many songs for a movie with a great script?

3. There were a few immiscible moments in the movie. Ravi singing with children in the beginning of the movie, Ravi referring to Banyan organization. Neither Ravi nor the organization seems to get proper mileage from each other. A very shabby screen play.

4. Story telling is an art and you have to be a master in it when you want to take it to the reel. The first hero Rathnavelu is shown in the movie as an alcoholic, but during the six months he lived with Bhanu he never comes home drunk and there is no smell of alcohol in the script. Then suddenly the director plays the “Alcohol anyonmous” card to out him to his wife. Though meal looked great and the aroma was appetizing but when tasted it was a salt less meal.

5. Comedy track was not necessary for this movie. Trying to get Venkat Prabhu for a 2 minute worthless comedy could have been definitely avoided.

6. The logical clues and dots that Ravi connects to trace Bhanu seem very shallow and lack excitement. The old wine in the new bottle doesn’t appeal.

7. The director was not clear about the message that he wanted to convey in his script and when it gets close to bring down the curtains he realizes and hurriedly tries to play the social message of “alcohol ruins lives” and makes a hotch potch of the story.

8. Cinematography was neither great. Some long shots like the Cochin bridge and Santhome Cathedral and some close shots failed to build the element of suspense in the story.

9. Poor editing and logical flaws were present through out the movie.

The first half of the movie was dull, slow and predictable and I was hoping for some Vasanth magic in the second half, which never came. On the way back home, I jogged my memory looking for highlight moments in the movie. I didn’t need more than a few fingers.

Comforting moments: Every cloud has a silver lining.
1. Performance of Prithviraj and Padmapriya definitely is the only reason to keep the audience till the end.
2. Prithviraj’s comedy is like the rain on a summer afternoon.
3. Rathnavel playing the victim card and psychopath card brings some life in the script. But in the movie he is as lost as we are, always guessing and wearing a quizzical look. Is that how psychopaths are supposed to look?
4. Ithayam pesiyathey songs makes you stick to your seat hoping for another breather in the movie.

Was the movie worth for the money?
No way. Audience were restlessly digging into the popcorn tub and gulping Coke to get to intermission and soon after the intermission they were found wiggling in their seats waiting for the movie to end. Definitely there was a powerful script but Vasanth lacked the maturity and finesse in his story telling.

Mr. Vasanth if you want to hold the mantle of KB, you need to shed the sheepish smile and get serious with film making.

Satham podathey (don’t make noise) will make no noise in the box office.

Krishna...Krishna ....Krishna....

Salvation from torturing Innocent kids?

We continue to live in the dark ages......

Sometimes it makes me wonder, Is America really a nation of sick and demented people?
In a country where people breathe technology and argue science over religion, some are blinded by sectarian fervor. Where is law and what is government doing when minors are thrown on the streets?

I am not talking about Charles Kingsley's "The Water Babies" kind of a fairy tale.

One community in Utah is chasing out teenage boys from their homes. Religious head instructs parents to shoo their kid away for not confirming to the rules of the sect. You can be banished from the house for watching movies, surfing net, but the sect thrives of polygamous relationship. For males salvation is only through polygamous relationship. The head of the sect is serving time in the jail for his sex crimes.

To keep the sect alive and principles intact the sect needs more females than males and hence they are happy to expel males in the family. As a result of being thrown away from home at an early age, life is only a bed of thorns for them. Most of them become school dropouts and some of the boys end up as criminals, drug addicts, and as a result they lose their child hood and go around like a rudderless boat.

Well if you think Indians are much better than Americans hold on your malicious tongue. Haven’t you read about female infanticide? Mothers dumping their newborn girls in dustbins and some of them even feeding their babies with Kallipaal, a kind of poison extracted from cactus. Thomas Friedman’s is right, “The world is flat” and there are Poothnas’ and Chatakasurs’ everywhere. We love creating a world and era of destitutes.

Man has tampered with the ecosystem and now he is tampering with his community and house. If Darwin was around he would come up with a new evolution theory, “Over the years of mankind has evolved to become more intelligent but they still remain to be most dangerous and selfish, sadistic animals on the planet." Animals kill their prey only for food, but mankind kills for their greed. The self perpetuating engine of greed in man will only stop when the last one is left behind on earth.

Some of us have hearts to share our wallets and do check book charity for destitutes, but do we have hearts to stop such cruelty? There are definitely a few things that money can't buy.

If given a choice I would choose to be born in the animal kingdom where off springs get more love and care without expecting anything in return.

Did someone say It is a mad, mad, mad world?

Read more of this article on NYTIME (Free, registration required)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/us/09polygamy.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all