In search of Pulicat

It can be difficult, but you have to call a spade a spade!

It was a hot sunday. The stars seemed to be with me, for the disinterested became suddenly interested and 4 of us set out in search of pulicat ( not that it was much of a search). It was a 2 hour drive, the last 19 kms very bumpy. The road directly leads you to a small market patch and there the lake lies ahead of you.

The sight before me was a let down. A dirty water front, a group of fishermen hounding you with boat rates, a lake with a depth that buffalos pull carts across and an island on the other side filled with buildings, all of which did not quite sum up to the 'idyllic beautiful hamlet and lake ' scene conjured up by The Hindu. The first thing that came to my mind was 'Whats the big deal??'... While the remaining day was much better, first impressions did color the entire experience....

We eventually did fix up a boat for 450 bucks to take us to the estuary or the mugadwaram... Once you move into the deeper waters, you can start enjoying the lake.... The water a beautiful mix of blue and green... wind blowing through you hair.... 30 mins and we reached the estuary... and o my o..The sea is beautiful... a deep beautiful blue ... The patch of land by the estuary is quite small, but clean nevertheless... and certainly the most ideal place for a peaceful , away from the maddening crowd picnic... This stretch is the highlight of pulicat. One should ideally go early in the morning, hit this spot, take a dip in the sea enjoy a nice breakfast and hit mainland before the suns blazing guns. The other nice thing to do would be to get a huge beach umbrella and hire a boat for a day and float about in a quiet corner of the lake.

We saw quite a few sail boats - but they are for boating on the sea and these fisherman dont really take us with them. The casurina groves or saukuthoppu and dutch cemetry are quite a waste of time. And too many fishermen who dont necessarily add to the joy pf the day. Plus, the afternoons are scorching ( which is what we found out first hand).. and the boatmen dont take you after 5... so mornings are the best times! Beware slighting one boatmen for another, u might end up with a punctured tire like us. And remeber to ask for Pazhaverkaadu as very few in this area know it as Pulicat

The unexpected suprise of the trip was the temple we chanced upon.. Its fascinating...Here in the south, in a human forsaken land there might not be water, but you'll certainly find god in a temple .. and if the pipes work, water in there!! This temple was about 1000 years old and built in the honor of lord shiva. The temple grounds were huge and the temple quite simple. Except for the iyers and a lady there was no soul around. Lord shiva in this temple resides as an 'aathma lingam'. The lingam was initially hidden in a tree, which was discovered by a king. Hence, the entrance to the temple too is set in a hidden way. This is one of the places were Maanikavasagar sang his songs. The walls are covered with inscriptions in Granth.

The quite breeze, oil lamps in the dark, the smell of karpuram and the slow vedic chanting was soothing to the mind and soul , and we left pulicat quite satisfied.

Hyding nook n corners

Yes.. My second post on Hyderabad.. Well, it was 2 years, and its not easy to pack all that into just a 200 word post..( more like 2000)! I just realized that I had actually wanted to write about living in Hyderabad...Little things I had discovered... But my previous post turned out to be more of relieving my emotions and feelings.... So here goes another one...

I have never ever surfed for details on a city like I did for Hyderabad... One extremely useful and most likely the first site which google lists : fullHYD.com... An excellent site for most information - it even lists special nights in various pubs and exhibitions... Talking about websites,a word of caution - one shouldn't get carried away by websites, especially of any place in Andhra as they tend to glorified about a 100 times.. The other most useful information service is 'Just-Dial' So just dial 4444-4444 and get phone numbers and addresses of just about any place in Hyderabad.

The first thing I dug around the place was for a library - and to my shock there aren't any..... Specifically not the small ones which issue a small white membership card, charge around 200 for membership and have tons of fiction..... ofcourse, the most common suggestion used to be British council... Which really doesn't have any books that make sense( in my opinion)... More googling landed me on knowledge-port.com... this site no longer is working, but knowledgeport is a library which delivers books home ...You pay 1 grand flat for a year and unlimited number of books delivered to your door step...And for those who want to have the feel of picking up a book, please feel free to go over to Greenlands - Begumpet intersection and you'll find KP bang opposite to lifestyle... Then, there's this guy who makes tons of money in the name of a book exhibition in Panjagutta...Its actually a second hand book shop - for the first book you pay the amount he quotes... Once u are done , you can exchange the book for a similar one for a nominal fee of about 10 or 15 bucks....And ofcourse, there's always crossword in Shopper's stop.

The other thing I dug around was for any signs of drama or theatre work ... Hyd has a very happening Teluge theatre... But English theatre is non existent... There exists a dramatic circle of Hyderabad, but i have never seen them putting up a performance in Hyderabad. The other group here is Expressions and British council organises workshops and some play readings once in a while.

While banglore is named the "garden city", you'll find innumerable of parks and gardens in Hyderabad too... If I am not way off, I think it was Naidu who took a lot of effort to decorate every one of them with fountains, lights and in some cases music.... The lawns along the necklace road also came up during his tenure... Latest to this collection is a 'Rock Garden' that was being developed along the lake... Free yoga classes happen in some of these parks ( in Masab tank, Indra gandhi park )... If you want to a Sunday evening break and also get mehndi done, u should hit vengalrao park... The women are damn fast and do a very pretty job!

There are lots of resorts like Alankritha , pragathi resorts for a weekend break , but I would personally prefer going to Icrisat - this is a UN funded campus for agricultural research - lovely rooms, vast expanse of lands you can cycle about, a simply beautiful large pool, and a sumptuous continental breakfast... And ofcourse their cakes!!!!

If you are a nature lover, and don't have like minded company, try these : There is Bird watchers society of AndhraPradesh (BSAP). They meet once a month to go birdwatching and go for a long trip once a year.They also work on some wilderness preservation projects.One thing is that, in my limited experience of birdwatching (once actually), i found the group a tad old. Then there is the Save the Rock society - which works towards preserving the natural deccan plateau now being destroyed by steel and cement. They also go on 'Rock walks' once in a month. The organized an Indian Ocean concert once in the Secret Lake, one of the best concerts ive been too.. Wild wood adventures is run by 2 brothers who organize day treks for individuals and corporates...quite ok except that places around hyd aren't exactly trekker's paradise...

ok.. I'll stop here now... I want to give a conclusion , but cant think of anything.. So period.

PS: Some links on HYD

Funny Hyderabad

Discovering Hyderabad

PS 2: Looks like I forgot to mention the sailing club...wonder where they sail ? - on the Hussaion Sagar ofcourse! On weekends, the colorful blue sails dot the lake and is a pretty sight! And there is a horse riding club ( located in masab tank).. They have a damn good deal for people interested in learning the sport.... And if you look closely into the 'events' section in the papers, you'll find horse races which happen quite often...

Shakespeare in India

And that was exactly how the play was done.... an indian cast, speaking in their respective native dialect, costumes which were a mix between the anglo-western and a mordern day adaptation of royal indian..... a Mid summer's night dream it was! the body work of the actors and actresses was simply beautiful... and ofcourse the rope climbing was totally fascinating.... barring ofcourse some scenes which were too real for comfort....

Bucks theatre (nandanam) was a perfect setting... open air, with a sweet unidentifiable fragrance ( i thought it was fro the odomos, but it wasn't... i hav a hunch it was a part of the props to give us a feel of the night... and i almost went mad not knowing where it came from)! For some reason, the audience was quite a regular bunch, unlike the usual hep aunties and uncles who make you wonder where do such people dissappear during the day.....

Departure Hyderabad... Destination Anywhere

It's almost 2 months since I moved out of Hyderabad and I finally have the urge to write about my life there.... for 2 and a half years , we've had a 'love and hate' relationship going on, but as I made preparations to leave the place ,I realised that I was going to miss the place!

It started of on a bad note.... I had roommates who believed that the world ran on the rules of 'saans bi kabhi bahoo theee' and their only passtime was sharing bad experiences about ex's and indulging in never ending beauty rituals... and i never saw them looking any prettier...!!!

I was living in a place called 'Masab Tank'... a place full of a lot of "local" hyderabadis who gave me the creeps... It was a conservative-muslim dominated area with women all the time in burkhas, that i started feeling exposed in my regular clothes....

I had great company at work, but no one to hang out with - for the first time in my life, I understood what being Lonely was.

I would have probably had tons of friends if i had accepted all the 'Do you wanna be my friend' offers that I got...Unbelieveable stuff!!! The scariest was when a negro-ish guy followed me up my flat stairs and when i thought he was goign to rob me, pushed a chit with his phone number on to my hand... During my most bravest, I had a 10 minute conversation advising the guy that one should not "make" friends this way!
And yes ... it is a very women unfriendly city... with men who stare so hard that their eyeballs might pop up of and with crazy jerks who get sadistic plesure out of spitting paan on women...


All I wanted to do was run from the city... but my stubborn half wasn't going to let the city run me out..

I moved houses...my next apartment was a gift from heaven - spacious , 3 bedroom with 3 bathrooms, balconies all around the house and in a posh locality for a killer rent! Along came a cool roommate with whom Ive had some of the longest conversations , the most vicious bitching sessions , tons of friends seasons, dominoes pizzas and garlic bread..

For the first time in life, becoming friends was not something that just "happened" ... For the first time , my closest friends weren't from my peer group... For the first time , coffee invitations were for just having coffee.... For the first time, my bestest friend was me.... and for the fist time i learnt to spend time with myself....

Snapshots ill cherish....

-Running till i lost sense of everything

-Working like crazy for the first one year... the best of me showed up only when the rest of office had left.

-Crying over books and discussing them for the better half of my work day

-laughing like a kid over nicknamed collegues and their eccentricities and concocted situations...

-trying new ways of optimal cooking

-lunching at cafe odyssey, hitting pubs on ladies nights , nail painting at imax , coffees at coffee day , and ofcourse eat street on a working day

-endless window shopping at shoppers stop , hyderabad central and shilparamam

-riding a fiero on the necklace road and wind 125 on kbr.... i touched 80 once :D :D.. riding bullets ( as the pinnion rider)

-driving along the necklace road late in the night, and watching the dark water garlanded by a string of light..

-just sitting by the lake and watching the water with my closest...

-climbing the Golconda and transcending time with the sound and light show... i've sat through the show for around 6 times in 2 years!

-watching Indian Ocean perform on secret lake.... if ever there was a place destined to be a stage...

-Sunday evening Chai at the park by the airport

-getting mehndi at vengal rao ark on sundays

- working with the lesser privileged kids ... the look of happiness that your presence brings to them .... it made me so ashamed that an act out of selfishness could mean so much to some one else...

-Salsa classes at oracle... and ofcourse dancing till the dj dropped at every party, every dance floor

-lounging on my balcony and sighing over the bright red gulmohars

-Just the sight of neon lights, huge hoardings and lit showrooms as i came home from a long day of work used to be filling..

It was a life of independence, of total abondonment of sane thoughts, of metomorphised beliefs, of passion and thorough coldness, of hapiness , of sadness... kind of a liberated existence....

Cycling along Clyde....

I had heard so much about Scotland and it's highlands and I was adamant about seeing it... Despite being time constrained, maam's managed to figure something out and we were on our way on Friday to Glasgow...... The early morning Scotland landscape was beautiful... Undulating hillocks, lush green meadows , white fleeced sheep, brooding forests , a dark blue sky lit by a hidden sun...... I was tired of "sight seeing"... And desperately wanted to see the Scottish highlands.. I had spent a good part of the "yesterday" looking up Clyde valley and firth of Clyde and was sure they would hold a path to the highland beauty......

Half an hour of figuring out hostels, a bargain for a 1 pound shower, an European breakfast, a long queue at the info center, a handful of maps and an address to a bike rental, misguided directions, almost an hour of searching, almost a decision to give up on a cycling adventure and atlast a 15 pound deal on 2 bikes...We were good to go.... The guys at the rental marked a trail which we started on... But it was too much by the city, and quite disinteresting when we hit on the bicycle trail to Loch Lomond.... Ofcourse, 15 miles seemed daunting , but I was grabbing any chance I got to get out of the city... We cycled along the firth canal to rolling greens and then to Dumbarton - a length of 11 miles......

A stop at Dumbarton for lunch , with every single part of my body screaming out ... Realization struck... Cycling another 4 miles was going to be difficult plus we needed to return the cycles..... A disappointed us returned back to Glasgow by train.... Not ready to give up, I dragged my friend to the busstop to enquire on buses to lomond.... The girl informed us that the last bus to the loch was leaving... A crazy impulse, 2 tickets , an unhelpful driver and a nail biting ride not knowing where we are going to get off or how we are going to get back, a guiding angel in the form of an old lady who lived by the lake, stop at Luss, a 5 minute walk....... And the beautiful Loch Lomond stretched out in front of us....

















a quote from a friend who recently visited scotland "just saw loch ness.. now i am ready to die!!!"