Photography : Mangalore

This is a weed but still gives a nice Flower.

St.Mary's Island in a different view.

Ah!...... I am happy that I captured this.

The morning dew on the leaf.

Pineapple Leaflet Could you guess that......

Kunal

Back to my blog!

I studied in St. Michaels’ School, Hubli. I am really indebted to this school like anybody else, since I have learn’t a lot not just academically but also culturally, ethically and personally. It is a catholic school and one of the reputed schools during those days. Anyway this is not why I planned to write today.

Today when I opened my yahoo group’s mail, I received a birthday reminder for one of my friend. His name is Kunal and he is a Gujarati. His birthday reminder made me remember my school time memories with him. Every week on Friday we had Games period where we used to play a self made game called “Dabba Dubbi” in which each person tried to hit other guy with the ball and person who is being hit should escape. Anybody could hit anybody. This was the common game we played for 40 minutes. After having played under the sun for such a long time we used to go to Kunal’s house to drink water. We used to ask Kunal’s mother “Auntiji paani milega ?” in Hindi since she didn’t know either English or Kannada. Kunal’s mother without any sort of anger used to give us cold water from fridge. This is why we went to Kunal’s house. I really appreciate Auntie’s patience to give the water for everyone around 20 of us. She never told us that she won't give water to us.

Once in a while whenever I am in Hubli I plan to either walk or drive thru’ my school so that I can refresh my memories.

Travelogue – Mangalore

It was my very old wish to go to Mangalore. I had heard a lot about the city from my friend Subash Rai who was my roommate when I was in Colorado Springs, US. My colleague Ajeya Rao a good friend of mine is from Surathkal which is 15 kms from Mangalore. I told him about my interest in visiting Mangalore and together we put a tentative plan during the long weekend for Gandhi Jayanti. We confirmed our travel plan 3 days before the weekend.
The early morning of 30th September we were in Majestic at 6:30 am. We had not reserved the tickets for our travel and it was difficult to get the tickets on the counter for a good bus. Good bus! Yes, bus with good shock absorbers. Ajeya managed to find a Semi Deluxe bus which departed Bangalore at 7:15 am. Unfortunately we managed to find seats at the rear end of the bus. I used unfortunately because the Mangalore roads have a different spice of their own. Anyway the journey started and I slept for the initial first hour. The bus took the route of Hassan – Sakaleshpur – Mangalore. We continued our journey talking about different subjects. The journey was not different to other journeys until we entered the area of Sakaleshpur.
From here the journey was different in two ways; one the quality of roads was not good due to poor maintenance which was a challenge to our backbones and secondly we entered into an area where the beauty of nature is mesmerizing. My eyes were locked at the windows to capture the beauty of the nature. The coffee estates and the Shiradi ghats are really good and horribly bad are the roads. The beautiful landscapes and trees remembered me about the Shenandoah National Park in one of my many travels in US.

Before we reached Mangalore we had to undergo one more impact test at the BC road of Mangalore. This road is probably the worst road I have ever traveled. I was eager to get out of the bus when we reached the Lalbagh Street. The climate and language was unusual for me. The climate was very humid and language was Tulu (regional language of Mangalore). We entered into an Ice cream parlor “Pabbas”. I was sitting silent not even talking to Ajeya because I felt everybody was talking to me in a language which I didn’t know. I felt I was hearing voices from people who were sitting far off from me. Having annealed our body with cold ice-cream we were eager to go home. We went to Ajeya’s beautiful house and there we were greeted by his father. On the way to his house Ajeya’s neighbors were eager to know who I was……

We freshened up and we went to nearby beach which is favorite beach of Ajeya. I met his friend Harsha whom I found very humorous. Since it was already dark, I couldn’t see the beach but only could hear the roars of the waves. We then decided to go and watch Yakshagana; the folk dance of Karnataka. In this they perform stories from Indian mythology in a different way. It is very difficult to explain the excitement that I experienced. Tired and excited by the day’s events we retuned back home to catch a good sleep.

On 1st October, We had planned to go to St. Mary’s Island. We were joined by our colleagues Jeevan and Vinayak Shetty. All four of us headed to the island exchanging talks about ourselves. We had to take a boat to go to the actual Island from Malpe. The sea was very beautiful and much more beautiful was the island which we reached after a 20 min sail. The island was maintained in a better condition for visitors. I felt the island was getting ready for a musical concert. The island decorated itself with long coconut trees, without the island lost half of its beauty. Every rock hit by a wave sang in a rhythm that drags the attention of every individual on the island. We came back to Malpe after a good time spent in the island. We took a bus to Udupi and Vinayak got down in between.

I was looking outside the window recollecting all the time I spent in the island. That day we went to my uncle’s house “Shashikaka”. I visited them after a one and half year. I like meeting all my relatives and friends. That night Ajeya and I talked till 2 o’clock. I don’t remember what we talked but it was good time we spent.

On 2nd October, we got up late. We had planned that we will spend the day in his house. We took a walk around his house. His house has a beautiful garden which beholds beautiful flowers. I loved to capture the flowers in pictures through my camera. In the evening we decided to go to nearby beach which as I mentioned earlier was Ajeya’s favorite place. The place is very calm and very nice. We went and sat on a rock after visiting a temple. I was sitting quite. I refused to talk to Ajeya when he asked me to. I watched the hot sun sinking into the sea. I heard the roar of the waves like the cry of the sea when it accepted the hot sun into itself. I listened to the waves hitting the rocks. I wanted to talk to the sea. Wanted to wipe its tears………but……….my hands were too small to wipe the tears of the sea.

It was time to say goodbye to Mangalore since my work was waiting for me.

My first day in US:
This is my first post in this blog and I should really thank Ajeya for encouraging me to write one. I know I cannot write as beautiful as he writes but will try one.
Lamhe: Lamhe means moments. This post is my lamhe in US where I spent one year of my life. It was July 12th 2005, the day I landed in US. I flew from Bangalore on 12th July 1:15 am and landed in Denver on 12th July at 1:00 am but it was 28 hours journey. How strange it is to have spent the same day twice in life.
Our flight was delayed by 5 hours and we reached late night at 1:00 am in Denver. I felt like I have landed in some place where people don’t talk to each other. Everybody was moving dragging their baggage along with them but nobody was talking to each other. Since this was my first journey in US without much thinking I asked a person who happened to be the flight crew about how to reach to the baggage claim area. He explained so nicely that I really understood every word of his and just followed blindly his instructions and finally found ourselves in the baggage claim area. We collected our baggage and called up Jonah and Ajeya. This was second trip for both of them to Denver since they did not know about the flight delay. It was strange that we had to identify Jonah and Ajeya whom we hadn’t seen.
Thinking about all this we slept on chairs. We were tired also. After an hour I don’t know whether I woke up by myself or somebody waked me but I found Ajeya in front of me.