Meeting Ananya and Sayantani

 It was a great afternoon-met two friends who are in Kolkata, one an alum of IMT N, and another a Ph.D. scholar who I met at a doctoral consortium. Sayantani is from the 2012 batch of Nagpur, and with ICICI Lombard ever since. Ananya Ghosh is doing her Ph.D. at St. Xavier's university. 

We had fun driving to Axis Mall, and having lunch at German Cafe at the entrance. We discovered the food was more Italian than German, and feasted on Pizza and Pasta. It was Eid, Ramzan, and most restaurants were crowded. We couldn't get parking inside Ecopark, which was our first choice. 

Talked about Merchant Navy, Doctors doing an MBA, and life in Kolkata, NOIDA and Pune (where I will be soon), and retirement time pass.

Pics from the fun outing- we had a cake too, that they'd brought along!

Sayantani (left) and Ananya

The cake came as a surprise! Had mine and ate it too!

 

Mandu in the Monsoon

Some more pics of an outing to Mandu. 2018.

I am up to my usual tricks-photographic ones.

Tea for Lilliputs?

Jahaz -mahaling.

Perfect! The board and the bhutta!Teen Deviyan bhutta khane pahunch gayin dharti par.

Cooing in Coonoor

An old joke about cooing in Coonoor and wooing in (W)Ooty is what triggered the title. But our purpose this time was not one of the above. It was simply chilling. There were five of us, classmates from MBA days at Bangalore, who formed the chillar party, or the chilling brigade. Starting out in Bangalore, we headed out to Ooty, enroute to Coonoor, which was to be our abode. Discovering that the Ooty Gymkhana Golf Club was on the way, three of us decided to play there. We had a great time, and proceeded to Coonoor in the evening. Temperatures were actually quite pleasant, contrary to what we thought they would be.

Walks, talks, card games, and eating out at various places is what we indulged ourselves in, with a bit of Single Malt to keep us company. We also managed to get a sketch of ours done by an artist in one of the restaurants we had gone to (we HAD formally learnt management, after all).

On day 2, we played golf at the beautiful Wellington Golf Club near Coonoor. As we wound our way across the course, I had a Hole-in-one on the no. 5 hole, which is a steep upward hit. Unbelievable! Many people go through a lifetime of golf without getting one, chances of making one being statistically very slim. After this, of course, we had to celebrate, and we did-at the Taj Gateway, overlooking the valley.

                                                         Picking up after the Hole-in-one, above.

All in all, it was a great combination-both Tee and Tea in the tea country of Nilgiris, and I look forward to 2017 being different, and NEW.

Pics From Outdoors

Indore and Outdoor are both to be enjoyed with equal attention. So it was in a spirit of exploration that we, a band of Indoreans set out last weekend. We managed to take in two major sights, one a religious shrine on the banks of river Narmada (Omkareshwar) and the second, a waterfall called Patalpaani, which has a railway line running opposite itself (like Dudhsagar near Goa, except that this one is below the track level). Some pics of the explorers, mostly colleagues at IIMI. There is this suspension bridge like the one in Rishikesh that you can walk across to reach the temple. Some dhaba food and a terrific shower thumping the roof of it while we ate were other highlights. There was some 'monkey business' at Patalpani too, but we came out unscathed.

Kevdeshwar Temple

There is an ancient temple I discovered on a short road-trip out of Indore yesterday. We had gone out hunting for a river (actually two) - Kshipra- at the closest possible site from the campus, due to a friend's time limitation.

Recently, the govt. has set up a meeting place for the Kshipra and the Narmada- two important rivers in the region, at a sangam (meeting point) near here. There is already a temple dedicated to Kshipra (deified version of the river) there. Pipelines bring in water from the two rivers and it flows through a ghat and out again.

On the way there, we found this ancient temple, Kevdeshwar, surrounded by huge banyan trees. A nice find. The green drive was also very enjoyable. Many of our attractions are hidden from the public, and one only discovers them serendipitously.

Baby's Day Out

No, I haven't regressed into a baby or a child. But happened to spend an evening out with my niece. We went in a small group of the young and the slightly older to the well-known Saras Baug in Pune. The idea was to run/walk around a little and enjoy the evening breeze. Turned out it was a lot of fun- even though we all were not too young, except the four-year-old niece.

The park led me to think about how Indian park experiences are different. We used to visit a few parks near Clemson, South Carolina while I lived there. One was Table Rock, which had a nice green environment, a Putt-putt golf course, and some picnic benches for us to eat stuff which we had brought along. No food was sold inside. The Pune park, in contrast, had all kinds of food stuff sold inside, ranging from roasted peanuts-delicious, by the way, to sliced cucumbers, to the very typical vada-pav- bread stuffed with a potato spiced pattie. Outside the park of course, this explodes into a variety of things from pav bhaji to ice cream. I am sure it is great fun for the kids, if the elders enjoy it so much.

I only wish we had waste bins placed at more locations around the lawns, because we had to search long and hard for some place to dump our waste. Another attraction in these places is the pink sugar candy, or "Buddhi ke baal" as it is known in local parlance. And everything was very reasonably priced, to suit the pockets of visitors young and old.