Ramki's Blog

Vikasa Soudha, Bangalore at night

2009-10-05T17:09:00.001+05:30

Captured during night with slow shutter speed

Websites featuring my photos and blog

2009-10-03T08:16:00.003+05:30

Some of the websites had featured my photos and this blog. Here is an attempt to enumerate them. I will update this list as and when I find something new.

Rose with rain drops

2009-10-01T09:35:00.002+05:30

Rose in my balcony, taken during a rainy day. Looks great with all the rain drops.

Vidhan Soudha, Bangalore at Night

2009-09-30T20:07:00.003+05:30

Also see this post http://blog.ramagi.com/2009/02/vidhan-soudha-bangalore.html

Onappookkalam, The Onam Floral Arrangement

2009-09-13T12:37:00.004+05:30

Another Onam has passed by. This year we couldn't celebrate Onam as we had a family marriage on the same day. During childhood days, Onam is the time of the year when all children are enthusiastic about the Onam holidays, pookkalam etc. Particularly in Trivandrum, government used to celebrate Onam by lavishly putting decorative lightings on all buildings in MG Road. The Onam celebrations are culminated by the floats parade through the MG Road. There will also be many traditional events held at many places which are a treat to watch.

This post is about a Onapookkalam (Onam Floral Arrangement) competition I had been to few years back. The Pookkalam (Flower Arrangement) is done throughout the onam season to welcome Mahabali (the erstwhile ruler of Kerala). To know the legend of Onam and why it is celebrated by all Keralites irrespective of religion visit the Wikipedia link here.

Below are some pictures from the competition.

Visit to nursery

2009-08-16T10:08:00.007+05:30

During this long weekend we are spending time organizing our home. The morning of the Independence Day was spend attending flag hoisting at our apartment and some long drive on hosur and sarjapur road. On the way back we went to a Nursery to buy some plants for our home. There are many nurseries available in and around Sarjapur. Below are some of the flower shots I have taken.

Face in the Sky

2009-07-25T07:34:00.004+05:30

Venus, Jupiter and the Moon in a shape of face
(Taken on Dec 1st 2008)

In a rare phenomenon, I captured this moment in the sky when Venus, Jupiter and Moon aligned to form a smiley face on the sky. This was present for at least 20 min before changing shape.

Dove (Pigeon)

2009-03-22T12:13:00.002+05:30

One of my favorite shots. Taken at Olympic Park, Atlanta, USA.

Trivandrum Trip Part I - Valiathura

2009-02-28T18:27:00.005+05:30

It is long time since I spent time this long in Trivandrum. It is such a wonderful place as it brings in lot of my good memories during childhood. I re-visited many places in Trivandrum during last month to revitalize my memory and take some good photographs. This post is part of a series of articles I would be writing about Trivandrum.

Trivandrum or Thiruvananthapuram (as it is called in Malayalam - തിരുവനന്തപുരം) is located on the west coast of India near the extreme south of the mainland spreading over a total of 2,192sq.km. This capital of the state of Kerala is a beautiful seaside city built on seven hills. Trivandrum is an ancient city with tradition dating back to 1000 BC. The city became the capital of Raja (King) of Travancore in 1750. The city gets its name from the word, Thiru-anantha-puram, meaning the city of Anantha or the abode of the sacred Serpent Anantha on which Lord Vishnu, the preserver of the Hindu trinity, reclines. More on the city can be found on wikipedia link on Trivandrum.

When you are writing about Trivandrum, you have to start with Sri Padmanabha Swamy Temple in the heart of the city. The temple is the reason for the city's name. I will write about the temple in a subsequent post. This post is about my trip to Valiathura. Valiathura is a beach side in Trivandrum adjacent to the famous Shangumugham beach.

On a Sunday morning I started out with my Brother on his bike. There was two reasons for the outing. To buy fish and to take some pictures. We went to the Valiathura beach which is around 15 min drive from my place at Karamana. On reaching Valiathura, we went straight to the Valiathura Pier to take some photos. This is a very old harbor no more under active use. The locals use the pier for fishing and the pier itself is in a precarious condition due to not maintaining.

Valiathura Pier

You can see the old harbor office nearby and also a warehouse used to store goods when the harbor was active. We were told that the warehouse is partly used and is in a very bad conditions. A passersby mistook us for press reporters and mentioned that there are anti-social elements using this place as their hideout.

Old Harbor Office Building at Valiathura

Notice Board on the Harbor Building depicting charges to use the Pier

Abandoned Warehouse at Valiathura

We then went to the pier. It was opened in 1956 by the P.S. Rau the then adviser to the King of Travancore (called Rajpramukh after independence). The pier goes deep into the sea and it provides magnificent view of the Indian ocean from within the sea.

Pier in damaged condition

When we walked on the pier we could see the destruction of the structure due to age. Many of the side walls were broken and some side steps were totally destructed with a slabs broken.

You can see old railway tracks on the pier used to transport goods coming through ships. We found many localites doing fishing here. The view from above the pier was excellent and I could take some good pictures.

Boat in the sea taken from the Pier

Fishermen on motor boat

Valiathura Beach as viewed from the Pier

After taking some pictures we got down from the pier and went underneath it. The view from below the pier is excellent with multiple columns of the pier visible in concentric squares.

View from under the Pier

If you go to Shangumugham or Valiathura in the morning, you will be able to see the fishermen catching fishes from the sea. There were a group of fishermen pulling their catch to shore. They go in boats to deep sea and put the large nets in the sea. The net is then pulled to the shore by groups of fishermen. There will be very long rope tied on both sides of the net and two groups of people pull them from the shore.

Group of men pulling the fish net

If you are interested, you can also join the fishermen to pull the net. We both also got into the job and helped them pull the net. You will be able to experience the effort taken to catch the fish. Some times if they are not lucky, after so much effort there will be very less fish in the net. Or sometime only very small fishes will be there.

Fishes inside the net

The net which we pulled to the shore had the same fate. There were only very small fishes in the net and the fishermen were very disappointed to see their effort yielding minimal result.

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Releated News: http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/03/stories/2008070361260300.htm

Vidhan Soudha, Bangalore

2009-02-22T12:59:00.004+05:30

Vidhan Soudha is the home of the Karnataka State Government. A very beautiful building made by modern men constructed in 'Neo-Dravidian' style. This building was conceived and built by Kengal Hanumanthiah during 1951-1956. I have not seen such an imposing architecture built after the Independence. More on this can be found at http://www.kar.nic.in/kla/vds.htm

Vidhan Soudha at Night

Colors of Nature - The Bug

2009-02-15T10:41:00.003+05:30

A tree bug seen with its beautiful forescent colors. Shot at Lalbagh, Bangalore.

Peacock - India's National Bird

2009-01-24T18:06:00.009+05:30

Peacock - India's National Bird

This is again one of my favorite pictures. If you are thinking I have taken this shot somewhere in India, that is wrong. I had not found such healthy peacocks in India under captivity. I could not visit a place where they are left to themselves. Back to the point, this photo was taken in Magnolia Gardens in Charleston, SC, USA.

Magnolia Gardens is an old plantation in Charleston where slaves used to work. It is a beautiful place where you could find flora and fauna spread over a vast area. On one side of the plantation runs the Ashley River and the other side is the Ashley River Road. I will write about my experience here in a future post as this one is about the Peacock.

Peafowl is the national bird of India. The male is called Peacock and female is called Peahen. We call both genders as peacock. In Magnolia Gardens, you can find Indian Peafowls moving freely with humans. They were so beautiful and majestic, it is difficult to keep your eyes off them. I could take some good pictures. There was also some white peacocks but they were far away to take good pictures.

This is another favorite shot. I was fortunate to have the peacock posing long enough to get a good composition. Look how beautiful she is. One of the most wonderful creatures of god. You have to see it for yourself the way they open up the feathers and stand.

This is a closeup shot of a peacock

Ouch!!! That's my wing

2009-01-16T09:48:00.004+05:30

Pair of Parrots

This is one of my all time favorite pictures. Taken at the Columbia Zoo. You can feel the warmth of love in this picture. We used to frequently visit this zoo when ever some guests come and when we go for grocery shopping to Columbia.

Commercial Street, Bangalore

2008-12-31T11:30:00.009+05:30

Even though I have been in Bangalore close to two years now, this is the first time I am visiting this famous shopping area in the city. We had some relatives visiting us during this weekend and we went on a Saturday afternoon. We parked the car near the parking area after the parade ground. This is a convenient parking place and you can walk down to the commercial street from there.

Commercial Street

Commercial street can be reached straight across from Brigade road on the other side of MG Road (refer map below) via Kamaraj Road. Once you cross Cubbon road after parade ground, there are car parking on either side of the road. After parking the car, we crossed the signal and commercial street is on the left side of the road. Car parking is also available in the Commercial Street, but is difficult to get. Parking is prohibited in Kamraj Road leading to Comm St.

The Commercial Street has branded stores and small shops thickly populated. The side lanes has many small shops selling cloths and accessories mostly for the fairer sex. I wonder why there is very little stuff on sale for the male. May be the merchants found the futility of trying to sell stuffs to men.

Ebrahim Sahib Street

There is also a parallel street Ebrahim Sahib Street to Commercial Street down the road which has many small shops. These two streets and the link lanes between them form bulk of the shops in this area. Clothing is what you go here for shopping. You get all kinds of cloths, ladies accessories (bangles, hair accessories, hand bags) etc from branded shops, small shops and road side vendors. You can find hand bags from Rs.50 to Rs.3000 depending on what you have in your purse. There are also many shops selling shoes and chapals.

Hand Bags for Rs.99 in ES Street

Unless you are a frequent visitor to this place, you may not find the right stuff for the right price till you spend hours visiting many shops. It is a good idea to check with locals about what to buy where. Else you may end up buying something which is cheap and better in your local big bazaar.

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Kolam Competition (Rangoli) at the Apartment

2008-10-28T17:55:00.003+05:30

During this year Deepavali, we had Kolam competition in our apartment. Above is the Kolam done by Agila for which she got 2nd Prize.

Kolam with lamps lighted

Another Kolam done by neighbour

Another one done by neighbour

Deepavali - The festival of lights

2008-10-28T14:10:00.005+05:30

This is the second year we are celebrating Deepavali in Bangalore. The celebrations are very subdued in this cosmopolitan compared to Chennai and Trivandrum. Not the same kind of fervor and magnitude. May be the other places also has changed with time which I am not aware.

I used to have very modest celebration always. This year, didn't purchase any fireworks. Let's be a bit eco-friendly. We did put up some lamps in our balcony. And did some photographs which came refreshingly good.

Traditional lamps lighting the apartment balcony

India's Journey to Moon

2008-10-22T18:31:00.004+05:30

Today morning I witnessed the launch of Chandrayaan-1 by ISRO from SHAR near Chennai. I had watched most of the televised launches by ISRO and some of them directly. This is again one of the proud moments when you think what India has achieved in the World. It was a perfect launch using PSLV the most trusted vehicle designed and build in Trivandrum. This is the 13th concecutive successful launch of PSLV.

Being part of ISRO's extended family, I feel proud and wish success to the the satellite's travel to the Moon orbit and ISRO's travel to the outer space.

ISKCON Temple, Bangalore

2008-10-18T08:05:00.008+05:30

It is a very modern temple which a futuristic architecture. The ISKCON Temple is situated in North Bangalore near Mahalakshmi Layout and Rajaji Nagar. It is around 7 Kms from Majestic. They seems to have plans to build a new one in Kanakpura Road.

The temple is on a hill top having magnificent view of the surrounding which includes few other temples. Camera is not allowed inside the temple and hence some of those views (especially in the dawn and dusk) are to be seen directly. Before entering the temple you have an option (yes, you can bypass this) of going through a 108 stone passage chanting Krishna praise. Then you go up to the temple where there are some supplementary deities and they are simple and beautiful to see. Passing this level you reach the majestic center hall of the temple. The roof of the temple is decorated with paintings from Krishna's life. The deities are made of gold (I guess plated) and are beautiful to see. The enclosure is also covered with Gold. You can also see the statue of the founder of ISKCON and get to buy a wide range of literature on Krishna including the famous Bhagavat Gita is many languages.

Night view of ISKCON temple

Once you come down after darshan, the feeling of visiting a temple ends and you enter into a miniature "Mall" with all kind of shops selling artifacts, souvenirs and food. You do get different items to buy here normally not available in a shop outside. They also run a charitable organization towards which many of the sale proceedings go. When you get down from the temple, you are provided with a bowl of "Prasadam", normally very delicious porridge.

The CAR parking fee is Rs.10/- and they do security check before allowing people inside the temple. There is no religious affiliations required to enter the temple and people of all religions are welcomed there.

Read more on this at MustseeIndia.com

Light House, Lalbagh

2008-10-01T07:11:00.007+05:30

The glass house situated at the central part of the Lalbagh and is a key attraction in the evenings. It seems very ordinary during the day, but lights up to a marvelous one after the dark. This magnificent glass house is built in line with London's Crystal Palace. The glass house is lit during weekend nights and a highlight for Lalbagh.

It is an ideal place to take good photographs. This one I capture from above the rock in Lalbagh and had come out well. I am guilty of not utilizing this venue enough to horn my photography skills.

During January and August, flowershow is held inside the Glass House around Republic Day and Independence Day. This is one of the best time to visit Lalbagh. Check out the flower show report below.

Lalbagh Flower Show, Bangalore

2008-09-28T11:53:00.008+05:30

We visited the annual flower show on Independence day at Lalbagh Garden, Bangalore. They had a similar flower show during the Republic Day which I could not visit. The entry fee for car was a high Rs.200. Other than the official flower display, there were many shops setup by local nurseries which offered a variety of horticulture ranging from fruits, plants, flowers and bonsai. In spite of the high entry fee there were huge crowd to see the show.

The attraction of the show were two glass houses one showing off a variety of desert plants and the other showing an enormous number of flowers arranged in many innovative patterns. The picture above and below shows the flowers on display inside the main glass house.

I like this one. In fact a good one for wallpaper.

Vadamalli (Globe Amaranth)

There was a second glass house (I have not seen it before) which was housing a variety of cactus plants. These beautiful thorny plants are a treat to watch and particularly so when they were arranged neatly the way it was done here.

Photo opportunities

2008-09-08T06:42:00.008+05:30

Sky at dusk
Originally uploaded by Ramki's reflections

This is one of the best pictures I had taken during my trips in Charleston. Today I bumped upon this picture and wondered if I can get chance to take such pictures again. While in Charleston, I used to go around during weekends just to see places and take pictures. It was much easier to do so. Now in India, I don't create such opportunities often.

But I believe there are lot in India to see and I intend to explore whenever I get a chance.

US visit after 2 years

2008-07-06T18:08:00.013+05:30

I went for a one week business trip to US (San Jose) during the second week of June. It was almost 2 years ago, I returned from US after a good long stay. And it was my first trip to the west coast.

I flew by Lufthansa. Not the greatest of the experience, but not bad. At least better than Northwest and Air India. I had flown by Lufthansa before when I returned to US after my marriage. The travel time was less with direct flight from Bangalore to Frankfurt and then to San Francisco. There was only 1 hr 40 min gap at Frankfurt.

I reached SFO (San Francisco Airport) on time at 12:15pm. Since I was told that the best way to get to San Jose was by taxi, I hired one. Taxi was pretty costly. There are other modes which are cheaper and more interesting (like the local train). I would have rather rented a car which would have been cheaper and convenient. But I was not sure if I can drive in US after the gap of 2 years. That was proved wrong when I ultimately decided to rent a car during the end of my trip.

I was staying in Staybridge Suite. Not a big brand, but it had pretty good facilities. It was a kind of full service Suite with complementary breakfast, dinner, laundry, Internet with all other amenities one would expect. The complementary dinner is something I have not seen anywhere else. The hotel is walkable from Cisco campus building 24.

It was spring time in US and the evenings were long. The Milpitas Ranch area was near to the hotel and it had all those shops I used to visit when I was in US. I went to Walmart, Ross, Best Buy, Micheals and refreshed my memories. It is true that in this part of the world every city looks same and very little difference I could feel between Charleston and San Jose when it comes to shopping and restaurants. Did some purchases and also had Chalupa (one of my favorites on the road) at Tacobell. I did not get chance to eat outside since the hotel was serving dinner and we had business dinners the other days.

By Friday when the business meetings were over, I rented a car with Hertz. I booked a compact (to be environment friendly) but they gave me a mini van. After a brief familiarization drive within the city, I drove to San Francisco. The car had "Hertz never lost" GPS system. It is the first time I am using one and it turned out to be a very good experience. It had voice prompting and is very precise in giving directions. It made the trip like a cake walk. Indeed you would never get lost with such a facility. I went to the Bay area and visited Pier 39. The Bay bridge was good. City was less crowded compared to what I had expected it to be. It was very cold there, bit different from San Jose. I wondered how the climate could change so much in 60 miles. The climate was dull and not a good day to take photographs.

On Saturday, I drove the car to SFO airport and caught the flight back home. It was good to be back home.

New Hanuman Statue near Agara, Bangalore

2008-05-08T18:28:00.009+05:30

In Bangalore, you can see many high rising Hanuman (Maruthi) statues. I have not seen such statues in other cities. There was a new statue built at Agara Junction (on outer ring road) and it was recently commissioned. It is a real big statue.

The statue is built very nicely and is decorated colorfully. Standing on a high pedestal, the statue looks majestic and this site could soon become a landmark. The interesting fact is that this is just besides a Mosque on one side and Temples on other side. A nice piece of communal harmony if I can call it that way.

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ISRO Launches 10 Satellites through PSLV

2008-04-28T21:56:00.003+05:30

Today, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched 10 satellites using its reliable PSLV rocket from its SHAR range in Sriharikota near Chennai. This is the 13th flight of PSLV and the vehicle carried two Indian satellites and 8 small foreign satellites. Castrosat of India will provide high resolution pictures.

This is one more step of ISRO into the high value space market where only few players are there. ISRO also proves that it can execute such complex projects by ejecting 10 satellites into orbit precisely. I am also proud to say that PSLV vehicle was built at Trivandrum my home town and 2 of my family members are linked to this organization.

See more on this at http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/April28_2008.htm
BBC News has a very informative article on this event. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7374714.stm. The site states "Today the country undoubtedly has one of the largest national networks of operational satellites anywhere in the world."

Great work by people at ISRO.

Kotilingeswara Temple, Karnataka

2008-04-27T14:00:00.011+05:30

Kotilingeswara Temple
Originally uploaded by Ramki's reflections

It is stated that there are 67 Lakhs (6.7 million) Shivlings in this temple. They are looking at 33 Lakhs (3.3 million) more to reach one crore (10 million). Devotees can sponsor installation of Linga.

This temple is situated at Kammasandra near Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka. You can reach here by taking the old Madras road from Bangalore. Take diversion just before Kolar town through BEML area. The distance is around 115Kms. You can also reach there by train to Bangarapet station and then by taxi/bus.

This is a unique temple where you see Shivlings everywhere you turn. There is a huge 108ft high Shivling (suppose to be the biggest in the world) and a 40ft high Nandi within the temple.

Free meals are provided to the pilgrims everyday in the noon. More details can be found at http://kotilinga.org/index.htm

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