Last Day @ GOA

Today was my last day in Goa. I had to start a day early since my parent's were coming to Manipal and I had to receive them. Then Morning I started from the hotel, A few hiccups here and there in terms of money but finally resolved. In the afternoon then I reached Madgaon and caught the passenger train to Udipi. The train reached udipi at 7:25 pm and with this our great tour comes to an end. Its very difficult to put across how much fun we had in the tour, But I have tried my level best and hope that this remains itched in our memories forever. Alvida Goa.

GOA - Day 4, Dharmik Sthalo ki Yaatra

Well as the title says, day 4 was the day when we took the official south goa which covers all the temples and other tourists spots on the south goa side. The central character of this post is Mr. Mendis our Guide in the bus. He was one of those M S Narayana type of character in telugu movies. Must say he had tremendous knowledge on Goa. But was very "pakao" keeping in mind his jokes. The tour began as usual half an hour late. The tour began with the two famous churches in south goa. The SE CATHEDRAL OF BASILICA and one more I do not remember the name clearly. The churches were absolutely excellent and we really loved it. It has a great history behind it. The next stop are a few temples around panaji city. The main reason why the temples are situated far from the city is that the christian missionaries were destroying all the temples in the panaji city and hence the kings at those times moved these temples out of the town. Well the way we had lunch was really great all the SWADES touch once again to it. In the evening we reached COLVA beach. This is the second longest coastline in India after Marina beach. By the time we came back a few people had drained out of energy amongst us. Then we parted ways I believe. myself Amit and co went for some real great shopping with some goa stuff. CP just went and sat on the panaji main road side. Rahul just sat on the MIRAMAR watching the sunset or something else. Tejas was lying on the bed only. By the time we finished our shopping it was late 9. Then we had a session and we enjoyed it. Soon it was a walk on the pavement and the night just closed slowly taking all of us in.

GOA - Day 3, The IDLE Day

As the topic of the post suggests. It was out and out an idle day for us as we literally did not do anything and did not go out also anywhere. In the morning it was the time for shifting as we had to move into the new hotel. The new hotel was very nice. The room was airconditioned and very decent and nice when compared to our earlier accomodation.

As the accomodation was excellent so was the bed and the AC. Soon after that what followed was a sleeping session wherein all the people had slept except for me. Somehow people managed to take bath and I must say taking bath was a delightful experience for me atleast. One bad thing happened our saif ali khan Mr. Tejas G Sheth had fall ill because of some stomach upset and other related problems in the stomach. Poor chap. His absence from the action was missed by all of us. His diet got restricted to only curd rice and water from the unusual ones. We had lunch then when all the people were about to sleep I took the initiative to wake all of them up and ask them to move to the Fort AGUADA . This fort has some history and I do not remember it well. The path to the fort I must say was quite tortuous and had some real outbound kind of experience. Somehow we managed to reach just in time because the fort was about to close. The fort was extremely nice place and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

We returned back at around 8 pm and then I went out to look out for my tickets back to manipal. But unfortunately Goa being a coastal town, the shops close as early as 8:00 PM. When we had come back we had our first ever sitting. I must say it did not provide us with that kind of enjoyment as we used to have in Manipal but then goa is goa. Tejas was on bed only whole of the time and night we went out to have a stroll on the footpath which was adjacent to the Panaji main road. I must say that was one of most enjoyable walks we ever had. We close the third with this.

The "PIT" Stop

The title of this post actually looks akin to a formula 1 terminology but has actually nothing to do with that. The PIT as we called it is a game played with cards. I will not like to reveal the minute details of the game as it is a very old game and its quite possible that the game may not be in existence. To sum up it is just like making a complete set let us say from ace to one. We had a great time playing the game and as we all know Mr. Vora is absolutely superb in explaining each and every fundamental. There was also counting in the game and negative counts ensured that one always remains in the bottom who were myself and tejas. CP finished at the top how he managed it is still a mystery because it was looking like Vora will once again crack it the A+ way. Rahul as usual had more interest of taking the photographs then playing the game. The major enjoyment factor in the game was (BOOGLE AND BEAR) which almost for half part of the game ended up with me only. On the overall basis game was really very nice and we hope to have it again sometime when we all meet together. Something else also happened on that night but needless to say it cannot be mentioned here.

GOA - Day 2 - Dil Chahta Hai

Well I have been writing post on the goa trip for quite a long while and now since it is not looking like it will go to completion soon, I have decided to cut short it and finish it in this or the next post.

The next day was the real enjoyment for all of us. It was day of the trip to the Fort Chappal. The fort chappal is situated on the coast of the vagatore beach. Vagatore beach is one of the coolest, cleanest and private beach in goa since people cannot reach here easily unlike miramar or calungate. The journey to the beach was a true SWADES kind of experience keeping in mind the buses we travelled in.

We reached the Vagatore beach at about 1:00 pm. It was a hot sunday afternoon with mercury rising upto 35-37 degree centigrade. Also the humid weather of Goa makes one feel more sultry and uncomfortable. We had prepared a bit for taking bath in the sea but then encouragement from other corners like CP and Rahul was not there. As usual Mr. Vora was a little disappointed man as he had enormous plans for taking bath in the sea. Soon after our always ready saif ali khan Mr. Tejas joined for sea bathing and then I followed them. It was a nice experience taking bath in a clean water unlike the ones we took in Summer Sands in Mangalore or the Turtle Bay in Kundapura.

Soon after taking bath cleaning oneself and getting into new clothes is a big issue. Somehow I managed to get into the same clothes but without something absolutely essential. Soon the adventure of taking bath in the water ended and we decided to climb up the hill fort.

Now this fort has a history attached to it and was absolutely fundamental for our arrival here. At this fort the shooting of Dil Chahta Hai took place. The photo of mine in this blog has been taken at the top of the fort only. While CP and Poornima had left by the time we started climbing mountain. Amit and Co retired in between because of extreme heat and "outbound" kind of path. On the fort only three of us were there - Rahul (Akshaya Khanna), Tejas (Saif Ali Khan) and ofcourse myself (needless to say who I was). It was altogether a great feeling to be there on the top. It was just like the feeling of the movie. we took so many photos and we really pity all the remaining people who could not make it to the top.

Just have a look at the photo with three of us on the top.

I must say Vagatore beach and the Fort Chappal (may be an ancestral property of Rahul) was one of the most memorable trip for me. By the time we had come down it was 3:30. We walked till the main road and then myself and tejas had the fruit salad at one shop. It was just like heaven and both of us enjoyed it as if we did not have for food for days. Slowly and steadly we walked down the bus stop and took the bus to reach back to hotel.

Meanwhile poornima left on that day and as CP puts in he was free from the duty. That day also we had Pizza at Domino's Pizza for the dinner. It was a birthday treat from Vora and all of us know how tough it is to get a treat from Mr. Vora . Then we came back to the hotel and started relaxing. Soon after that what followed was perhaps the highlight of this trip of us. This marks the end of day 2.

The Dil Chahta Hai Experience 

My Upanayanam

Today was my upanayanam and it started as early as 5:00 in the morning. More about it I will be putting in later here. There are a few incidents attached with the new digital camera but on the overall basis I was able to cover the entire Upanayanam in the photographs. A Few glimpses of the Upanayanam are put on the blog in the form of photographs.

The entire ceremony and the rituals for the upanayanam began a day before on tuesday. It started at 5:30 pm on 10th of May 2005, tuesday. Tuesday as we all know is also the day of hanuman. Since the place which is the Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, in Skandagiri is very famous for its Hanuman Temple, they give lot of emphasis on tuesdays. The pooja started with the Kul devtaa sthapan which is always the first in any pooja. Thereafter ganesh pooja was carried out since that is done before beginning any good work. Afterwards the shanthi pooja is carried out to ensure shanthi in the household. This marks the end of the first day on tuesday. We had to do fast on that day and hence we had only pongal that night.

The next day begin as early as 5:00 in the morning for us. After taking bath I wore the dhoti or panchaa as we call it in telugu and then angavastram on the top. We reached the venue by 6:15 am and by that time all the arrangements were being made. By 6:55 am all the people were there and the proceedings began at that time.

Thereafter the pooja went uptil 10:20 am wherein once I had the haircut and then took bath also after that. I had the tiffin in the process. We had invited only our close relatives since it was a closed function. The lunch began at 11:00 am and we winded up the entire proceedings by 1:00 pm.

It was a great feeling for my mother and me since she was waiting to do my upanayanama for a long time but my busy schedule whether in TAPMI or in engineering was not allowing her to do that.

Next step after the upanayanam is the sandhya vandanam which is absolutely essential for a brahmachari to do. I did sandhya vandanamwith the help of my dad in the evening and since it is the first time and no one knows in our house how to do it it did not come properly.

Night we went to the house of one of our relatives. Mr Tirumal Rao. He is an expert in sandhya vandanam and perhaps he was the person I was looking for. More on how the sandhya vandanam is done in the next entry.

Myself and Dad before the Start of the Pooja 

Myself Performing the Pooja and Gayathri Japam 

Myself Dad and Mom at the Pooja 

Bhavathi Bhiksham Dehi - From Ammamma

Ashirwad Ceremony in Upanayanam 

GOA - Game of Adventure Part 3 - It's Party Time Folks

Well we come back to our Goa trip. The two girls who have joined us in this tour are vaishali who is amit's friend and Poornima who is CP's friend. Well poornima is quite open and mingled very easily with all of us vaishali seems to just a true copy of vora. The first day in Goa is a lazy day since none of us willing to get up from the bed after a bad sleep in the bus. So somehow we all gathered and went to the nearest restaurant for lunch. The lunch was more like a brunch and after finishing that we went to the nearest tourist spot from our place the MIRAMAR BEACH. One of the most popular beaches in Goa since it is centrally located in the city and the only beach which is inside the panjim city. We spent some time there and then one of the worst experience's of the journey begins - "My encounter with SAND".
I really hate sand and that is one reason I do not like to venture into sea bathing and other related activities near a beach.
Imagine getting rolled into sand for some umpteen number of times and then the sand getting into your pants socks shoes shirt and everywhere else.

The second spot where we went on that day is the DONAPAULA. This place has a little of history attached to it which I am not presenting here since it is not very great and it will make the stuff boring. But only this is that here a girl by name paula did suicide. Here also shooting of movies like Ek Dujhe je liye took place and that is one reason why it shot into prominence. Then we has a great time there in quite a number of photographs were taken by our photographer friend Mr. Chappar. We started back from their and by that time some amount of sand had started coming out of my pants. It was some what pleasant. The next spot was the Cruise which I was looking after very much. There also from where we should be buying the tickets. Finally we got the tickets of a nice cruise only. It had some name and I do not remember that now. It was a good trip perhaps value for the 100 rupees spent. There are numerous programs also on the cruise like the foreign dances and once foreign couple among the tourists did show off their dance also. The reason being they were drunk. After we were done with the cruise we walked back and only restaurant which was at our sight looked decent was the QUARTERDECK . The name itself is enough. The food was good and we enjoyed it to the fullest extent after a very long walk. The walk to hotel was perhaps the best. We reached hotel and then first of all I took the bath and then the couple got despatched into their respective rooms. Three of us Tejas Rahul and myself were left behind in the room. What happened thereafter is known only to three of us.

My Upanayanam

My upanayanam is now only two days away. It is scheduled on May 11, 2005 which is one of the most auspicious day of this year. On this day numerous marriages and other functions are going to happen throughout India. 11 May 2005 is the day of Akshaya Tritiya. Akshaya means something that will not diminish. It is an auspicious day to make a beginning. Hence on this day people buy gold because there is a belief that if one buys gold on this day then it will double in future years. Well this happens or not is still a mystery by itself, but the day has been utilised by news papers and jewellers throughout the country to mint money.

Well something about the upanayanam. It actually means taking near. The Samskara or ceremonial rite in which a young Brahmin boy is endowed with the sacred thread and initiated to the Gayathri mantra is referred to as Upanayanam. I was not knowing all this before neither it has been invented by me. I thought for a moment as to why I am undergoing this upanayanam and why I should wear the sacred thread. This provoked me to look information on the net info about the upanayanam. I am quite happy that my upanayanam or thread ceremony or Janaiv or Vodugu (as we call in telugu) is taking place on Akshaya Tritiya.

The Upanayanam makes the boy eligible for the study of the Vedas. The Vatu or the young Brahmachari becomes a Dvija or "Twice Born" after the Upanayanam. So I will be twice born after the upanayanam.

Will meet you all in my second janma soon.

05-05-05

As always days just pass on and we hardly notice them carefully. Usually even I never notice the dates so carefully but I have been looking at them for quite some time now. What is so special about today. Today is 5th May 2005. Ever wondered what's so special about this date. A closer look will tell us some things about this. The date format in the MM DD YY tells us that all the three are the same that is 05-05-05. It is such a rare phenomenon because this happens only once in 1000 years and the event happens on a thursday only once in 7000 years. This info also I got from the umpteen number of yahoo IM which people keep on sending across to their friends.
Last year also a similar kind of event had occurred. When I was doing my summers in Ranbaxy Fine Chemicals Limited, a celestial event took place. It was called as the Transit of Venus. It too happened on a very similar kind of date 08-06-04. Just observe that the three figures in the date are only 2 apart. The photo of this event is also shown below.

On this day venus drift across the face of the sun as Venus passed between the sun and earth. This was one of the rare celestial spectacle and a transit of Venus is so rare that, up to June 8, 2004, no human then alive had witnessed this celestial event. Simple as transits may seem, they are instrumental in defining our place in the cosmos. Historically global expeditions timed transits of Venus to quantify the size of the solar system. Then next transit of Venus is scheduled on June 5-6,2012.

For Further information please visit the site : http://transitofvenus.org .

The Google Moment

Well Well Well a little break from the Goa trip synopsis. Today is one day I will remember for the days to come. For the first time, right from the day I starting blogging, my blog as a website got listed in the google. The keywords are "yashasvi" and "yashasvi arun". One can also type my website name "yashinc" to get to my blog. Its a great achievement because usually google crawls the website in not less than 6 weeks. Well I am posting this essentially to express that Its not tough to get listed in google. What one needs to do is to post regularly for a week and that's it done. My next attempt would be list my website which is coming up within a few days as the first entry in Google on the keyword of "yashasvi". Actually if one types "yashasvi arun" my entry comes first. But if one types the name "yashasvi", my entry turns out to be 6th in the list of search results. So my effort would be now to first increase the "yashasvi" search to the first place. Well that is enough for this achievement. When more new things will happen I will keep posting.

GOA - Game of Adventure

This post is on one of my best and most enjoyable tours ever undertaken. The trip to Goa.

I like travelling and I have travelled to many parts of India and even stayed in many metro cities of our country thanks to the relatives and people on my dad and mom side. Dad's relatives are spread across the country right from punjab to UP, Gujarat, MP, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra etc. So usually in our summer vacations we used to go to these places. Well travelling as I said is my hobby like thing and I love travelling to the extent it does not make me feel tired.

Among the various tours which I enjoyed the most are the ones of Kedarnath, Our college trip to Vishakhapatnam and a recently concluded one the trip to Goa with my four close friends. They are Amit Vora, Rahul Chapparwal, T V S Chalapathy Rao, Tejas G Sheth. The trips in TAPMI are usually never organized beforehand and there is no clear cut plan ahead as to where we will be going and all. Since we prefer to work the JIT way hence no plans before hand work for us.

Same here. The plan for Goa trip was made by the foursome wholesome the CART (Chalapathy Amit Rahul Tejas). Now they also stand for the acronym CATR which is Cut Above the Rest because I feel they are different. More on it in the next post - GOA 2

GOA - Game of Adventure Part 2 - Its the Beginning

Our tour started on 18th of March 2005 soon after we finished all our end term exams of VI term and also our academic activity in TAPMI.

We had booked our tickets in a decent bus which also we caught in an adventurous manner. It so happened that the bus which we were supposed to take actually went without taking us thanks to the communication gap created by the ticket issuer. Somehow just in time we could reach the boarding place. As usual the bus came 1 hour late and we got the most unfortunate seats in the bus the last ones. The seats were good there was not much of a problem. Thereafter I slept and I think rest of the people also slept unless somebody got something more interesting like Tejas. Tejas and CP sat in the front and enjoyed the whole night the baby cries and screams. God bless them.

Early morning at about 6:00 AM we reached PANJIM. Panjim or Panji or Panaji as it is called is the capital of Goa. After getting down when we were just about to forget TAPMI, a person saw my TAPMI T-shirt and called on me and asked me some details.

Then we moved in a taxi which turned out to be the most economical among all modes of transport available in Goa for the time being only. We loaded all the luggages and ourselves also into it and then reached the first temporary accomodation for us in Goa - The Indra Niwas Guest House for the Bank of India employees.

We had to negotiate a little bit with the incharge therein for a big room and we were quite successful in that. I was not involved in that and this was all taken care by Rahul only. Thereafter we got inside and pushed our luggages somewhere and slept on the bed for sometime thereafter Music that too Filmi. I do not like filmi music in the early mornings because I think that is only time one can hear the devotional music.

Well when we got up it was the breakfast time and we all went for the first breakfast in Goa. The restaurant looked great from outside (NAVTARA) but then who knows the inside story we are not NDTV na. We went in and ordered the normal breakfast stuff we used to have in Manipal. The dishes were absolutely average with lot of oil in each of sambhar, curry and chutni. Ok What Looks great from outside need not be good from inside.

Well at this moment we close this entry and move on to the third entry since two more new characters are going to enter into the story from now on and they are of opposite sex. So watch out.

Dial Up to BroadBand - Thanks BSNL

Well I used to wonder will I ever be able to download peacefully something from the internet like songs or softwares etc. without worrying about the telephone. Well It has happenend and that too in a quick time only. Thanks to BSNL.

A couple of months back, keeping in mind the future needs and the growing community of internet users, BSNL forayed into the Broadband space with absolutely attractive options for the customers both home and business users. The broadband space was previously dominated by a few major players like Dishnet DSL and Sify Broadband. They charged high costs and there was a lot of limitation on the amount of hours one can browse for. If we see this definition this becomes more like a dial up connection but which is always on.

BSNL came up initially with the NETONE dial up access service. This was a accountless internet service meaning by we need not register anywhere and any amount of internet we can use. 10 paise per minute will be ISP charges and call charges will be the same as of a landline. Totally putting it it use to come to around 26 per hour when compared to Sify's 32-38 rupees per hour. Hence this helped actually BSNL a lot as they had record number of NETONE dial up connections in the market. This also speaks of why SIFY wants to exit from the Dial Up market in totality.

Then BSNL on 14th January inaugurated its BroadBand service . Now this broadband service unlike other services comes through telephone only but then it provides such a mechanism that your telephone will never be engaged because of it. So this helps in using both the telephone and high speed internet at the same time.

The service works on the prinicple of a ADSL splitter which splits the telephone line and the high speed internet line at the user's premises. For this service one needs a LAN Card, a ADSL modem which BSNL provides at a one time cost of 2000 rupees and a BSNL Landline. We paid all the money and the monthly rentals are only 500 per month for a 256 KBPS line. The monthly rentals increase with the KBPS.

256 KBPS is much more than sufficient for any home. The current download speeds I am facing are as high as 90-100 KBPS and a low of 30 KBPS. But then the plan has a catch. One cannot download more than 1 GB of data per month. I think this restriction will not work against the service since this is a lot of amount to download.

Well now there is no tension of any telephone bills and no connection problems and no speed problems also. Everything is lightning fast and I am happy the way the BSNL responds to the customers queries also.

Some facts - A song download of around 6 MB takes close to a minute and plugin loading time for any software is only few seconds unlike the dial up. Windows remains always Updated and NAV Live Update also doesn't cry.

Thanks BSNL for an excellent service. Thanks once again.

I am Back

Ok ladies and gentlemen I am back. Its a been a long time since I had last posted something on my blog. As always I have one reason for all this. Time. Well we will leave all this at this stage and proceed to see what has been happening for the last few days with me. To be precise I blogged last time close to 38 days before.

I was waiting to blog and put across my views on several issues which I came across in these days but then some other prior commitments and had put me in work.

Coming back to my personal issues, I have finished my diary writing which was pending for the last 35 days to be precise with all the moments captured in properly which had some absolutely great moments of my life. To top all those events was my CONVOCATION ceremony for the PGDM course in TAPMI. It was a all in all a great experience and a feat in its own. Then we had our Goa Trip which is perhaps the most memorable trip I had undertaken in my life till date. The most enjoyable and perhaps once in a life time kind of a feat.

With my completing the diary fully I have all the details of TAPMI right from joining that is 28-June-2003 till 26-March-2005. My diary has the account of all the days in full terms and can tell how the days have went by and what kind of problems I had faced in these two years. It has some loving memories and some things which I would like to forget.

Also the account statement for my two year stay at TAPMI is ready with all the expenses excluding the fees provided. I will be updating those also soon.

This was the brief. I will be posting blog entries on numerous other topics like the Goa Trip and CONVOCATION.

The next blog entry will tell u what I am doing now.