Texas Renaissance Festival

23rd Oct 2011

It was one of the rare beautiful weekends that we had in houston in long time and as they say here in houston you should enjoy the good weather while it lasts as you blink your eyes and it might be gone! So we decided it was perfect timing for us to visit the "Texas Renaissance Festival", one of the most coveted event in houston, almost as much as Rodeo if not more. And what more it was a Pirates Theme weekend which is supposed to be one of the best one. People dressed in cute and sexy pirate dresses can't go wrong, can they?

Texas Renaissance festival is the European style festival where people from all around the world gather at the place near Plantsville TX, around 50 miles from houston creating the atmosphere of ancient European countries. There are lots and lots of shows for the audience to enjoy. Some of which includes puppet, dance, music, free style, ballet and lots more. It runs from second weekend of October till the Thanks giving weekend and It only runs on the weekend. I wonder what they do during the weekdays. Thousands of performers around the wold come here and create a small town for almost two months. There are lots and lots of things to do besides the shows, like face painting, henna, tattoo parlor, unique hands in wax, rock climbing, paint ball, shooting, darts and children activities also like pony rides, elephant and camel rides, petting zoo and lots of games for the kids. You have to pay each of these activities of course, but its surely a day full of fun and enjoyment. We had a very nice time together as a family.

There is of course food, yumm. I always wanted to try that turkey leg from the day I saw it on Rodeo, though I didn't get a chance to eat there, I made sure my desire gets satisfied here. Its a full leg of turkey barbecued on charcoal grill with some spices and its delicious for a meal. We also tried Greek Gyros that was pretty good too. There are hundreds of eateries all around with different kind of food and one can eat whatever he wants.

Important thing here is though to reach there early. It opens at 9:00 am but if you really want to avoid traffic try to reach there much before that! We had a really hard time on one stretch as it is just a single lane, as you would expect in a small town of mangolia and it was one of the worst slow moving traffic I have ever seen. Also  while coming back, one can not leave early without missing excellent night fire and laser show which ofcourse happens after the dusk. So one will anyways have to get stuck while coming back.

Tickets are not that cheap 25$ if you buy at the gate. Though it makes sense to buy it at your local HEB grocery store for 20$. Food is not that expensive inside the village, and most rides and games are 4-5$ each. So we should make sure to have some cash. Though there are enough ATMs inside the village, if one doesn't mind paying those "extra" fees. We are surely the ones who mind it !

Overall a great way to spend a day on a weekend, if possible one can even do the camping at night and spend a full weekend . I'll surely go back next year!

In a war ridden country

In the spring of 2011, we were on our once in a two year trip to India. This time we had decided that we'll travel via Dubai and Iraq. In Iraq specifically for the pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Karbala and Najaf. Karbala is the resting place of Shia Imam Hussain (AS) and his 72 martyrs. And Najaf is the resting place of Ali (AS), the most important figure for Shia muslims after the Prophet(SA) and  Father of Imam Hasan and Hussain.

Shrines

For the breif history of Ali (AS) and Hussain (AS), and to know their importance in the Shia muslim's life, please visit  Ali and Hussain.

But I am writing this post specifically of my impressions of the war ridden country for a small one week that I stayed, most of the time was spent in pilgrimage but I had got good enough time to observe the lives of Iraqi people. What I understood though was that Baghdad is the most affected place and you can't really compare Karbala and Najaf, the places I visited, to see the real effects, and I humbly agree. And that's exactly my point here that watching CNN and those discussion, you can't really generalize that whole country is in the highest trauma.

While traveling around different places, first thing you notice is people, they are as calm and collected as in most places in the world. All the routine business is as usual, businesses look like thriving. Country is surely coming back on its feet. I see the rail tracks being laid everywhere, there are quite a few broken buildings, of course because of wars and missiles, but much more construction work in progress. The country is very much like sub-continent, dusty, and full of people and energy. People are truthful and trustful. Though they don't like Indian tourist much, as they do lots of bargaining. 

work in progress, shoppers and road side assistance

Some places directly accept the US$. So I didn't try to get the exchange much. But while shopping at the local vendor for Tasbeeh, (after doing some bargaining!) when I gave the $, he didn't accept it and he wanted IQD, so I asked him that I will put the my items back, which he had already packed and will get the exchange and come back, he instantly told me to take the things with me and get the money. All this communication happened, via sign language of course, as I don't know Arabic or Persian and he doesn't know English. Just thinking about this, I don't think I will see this kind of trust in the most places, I was one of the thousands tourist and he might never see me in his life. Though I agree that what I purchased was not much but then also it was touching.

Oh btw, foreign exchange is pretty different, as Iraqi deenars are quite low in value and you will pay around 1200 IQD for a bottle of water, which is less than a Dollar.


Look at those school bags, surely the pictures there reminds of their version of Dora and Cindrella!

One night, while waiting for my wife, outside the shrine of Abbas Ali (AS), with my daughter who was sleeping, one boy, may be around 17, came and started talking in broken english. He introduced himself and his younger sister, I sadly forgot their names. He was wearing Barcelona FC shirt, and I asked him, is he fan of  Messi, and he replies he is Real Madrid's fan. He told me he was from Iraq and I just thought he spoke Iran. He immediately aggressively replied no IRAN, Iraq. Still these neighbors have bitter emotions. But boy was really sweet, he welcomed me in his country, gave compliments on my daughter and  he told me he's coming from some 10 hours away, in the south of Iraq and he and his family visit this shrine regularly.

Another thing I noticed is, dresses for women. Though you can't see anything as women are wearing "Burkhas", I noticed that the shops, which were selling these clothes, were very much western. Jeans, T-shirts, short, tight and mini(!) dresses and lots of  different types of stockings . So inside their burkhas, these women wear all the modern dresses. Iraqi and Irani women were insanely beautiful btw, oh you can see faces as they wear burkhas but don't cover faces!

Though don't think that I didn't see anything unusual. There are thousands of check posts everywhere, the distance between Najaf and Karbala is hardly 15-20 miles, but it takes more than 2 hours if you are lucky because of lots of check posts. They don't normally ask you to get down of your vehicles and drivers just shows them the Iraqi Visa. K-9s will be moved around your vehicles to check that things are fine.  There are few posts near both the shrines, you are not allowed to take cameras, phone or any electronic devices inside the shrines and they properly frisk you before allowing to enter the shrine.And you see armed military personnel everywhere. In some sensitive area near shrines they have even high tech guns, kind of which comes as a part of tank. I even noticed some quarrel in the market.

On the streets there are hundreds of street vendors selling the Chinese made consumer items like we see in India, Chandni chawk at Delhi or Churchgate at Mumbai. They just sit on the roads and sell the things during the day and till late nights.

One thing I missed though was eating the local street food, as my body was still getting used to the new environment, I had an upset stomach. Though I made sure buying some sweets at the local sweet shop and took it with me to India to enjoy later. They were quite awesome. But no worries I am sure, God willing, I will visit these places again.

West Coast - Travelogue

After quite a bit of planning since long time, we decided it was a time for us to get out of hot and humid Houston and visit some of the very famous tourist attractions on west coast of America. With the labour day weekend passed and the kids back to school, we thought this should be the best and possibly cheapest time to travel. With our Ramadan fasting also just getting over, it would be nice little break for us too. So luckily we found that continental was running some promotion to fly to beaches in California if you take the weekday flights. We booked our flight, booked the hotels and started our journey.

September 2011:
Started the journey on 7th - Wed

We left home around 3:45 pm, parked car at the eco zone @IAH and reached the airport at around 4:45 pm CST, Flight was at 6:00 pm, Continental Airlines.
Reached LA around 7:30 pm  PST, took a shuttle to Enterprise Car rental, rented the Chevy Avio and  Reached hotel, Howard Johnson, Fullerton at around 9:30 PM

8th Sept - Thursday ( Universal Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles)

Day started around 7:30 am, had a breakfast in the hotel, went to Walmart which was nearby to purchase some fruits and other things. Left for Universal studios around 8:30 am, hoping to reach Hollywood by 9:30-9:45 max for 30 miles drive.. First mistake of under estimating LA traffic, reached hollywood and universal studios at around 10:30 am !

Nice day at Universal, enjoyed most of rides and shows, Lulua also seemed to have a good time. Enjoyed Shrek 4D and Simpsons rides most. Also the tour of studio for 45 mins was just great. King kong 360 4D and scene creation for earth quake and flooding was mind blowing. Got some ideas on how the movies are made! Over all a good day.

Left  the Universal at around 6:00, to go to very famous Hollywood Blvd, visited all the famous land marks like Chinese theater, Kodak theater, Madam Tussuad (didn't visit the studio), Hollywood sign!.  Had dinner at California Pizza.

Reached hotel at around 10:00 pm, retired to sleep.

9th Sept - Friday ( San Diego):

Left for San Diego, early at around 8:00am after having a breakfast at hotel. Traffic relatively OK proably because took car pool lane, Took a I-5 South. What a beautiful drive, with mountains at one side and sea coast at other, just amazing. Reached San Diego, Balboa park at around 10:00 am. Weather was really pleasant, much needed relief from Houston's 105 degrees weather. Visited couple of free museums, botanical garden. Wanted to visit very famous San Diego Zoo, but didn't have enough time! On the local's suggestions, went to Old town, San Diego. Nice little laid back historical place with lots of Mexican food joints. Had a lunch, nice Tex Mex at state park and visited couple of beautiful shops selling souvenirs.

Took a late decision to check out the very famous San Diego Downtown skyline. After some research, realized the best place to see it is, from Coronado Island and the bridge that connects the Island and the city is really cool. Took a nice drive at the Coronado Island. Took some photographs. Traveled back to LA

San Diego from Coronado Island

10th Sept - Saturday (Las Vegas):

Took a 3 days 2 nights, tour bus to Vegas and Grand Canyon South rim. Left at around 6:30 am from hotel after having breakfast, parked rental car at holiday Inn La Miranda, and bus journey started from around 7:30 am. Reached first to factory outlet malls, stop for 45 mins, and then had a lunch at In and Out burger. Reached Vegas, Tropicana hotel at around 2:30, for Sight seeing the strip and taking photographs. Reached hotel Stratosphere at around 3:30, checked-in to the hotel, relaxed and took a short tour of hotel and casino. Took a night tour via travel bus. Went to see, Mirage, Venentia, Ballagio and Old town, oldest hotel golden gate casino. Watched free shows of foutains near Ballagio and Men made volcano at Mirage and the Fremont street show on the Ceiling. Reached hotel at around 11:00 pm

Eiffel Tower, Paris hotel

Newyork Newyork

11th Sept - Sunday ( Grand Canyon -SouthRim and Vegas):

Left early at around 5:30 to Grand Canyon, South Rim. Checked the Hoover Dam in between. Real nice work of man made architecture and continued to Grand Canyon, heard news on the way that its raining in south rim and if its cloudy and rainy, it will spoil our plans as you don't get the best view and you can't enjoy much. Reached South rim around 11:30 am. Rain has just stopped and its bright and sunny, watched the brilliantly made IMAX movie for Grand Canyon. Had lunch here. And as soon as we came out, well its raining cats and dogs!. Though everything got cleared up in 15-20 mins thankfully, Its pretty common there I suppose as Grand Canyon being at the very high altitude.Then entered the Grand Canyon National Park and the view of Grand Canyon is just breath taking, literally, no words to describe. Just beautiful. Spent around one and half hour and journey back to Vegas.

This says it all!

Reached Vegas around 6:00,  Left for the Strip again. Checked out some of the hotels like Eiffiel Tower at Paris and checked some shows. Reached to hotel back, went to the top of the Stratosphere hotel, spectacular view of vegas.

12th Sept - Monday ( Back to LA):

Checked M&M and Ethel M Chocolate factory and Cactus Botanical garden, very close to Vegas. Time was given 1 hour which was quite less for the things to do there. Had a chinese unlimited buffet brunch on the way. Again 2 hours stop at the factory outlet.. Mostly because of their commitments with the shops owners.

Reached LA at around 6:00 pm. Went to Disney land and Disney down town. Nice but nothing compared to the one in Orlando.

Reached Chirag's sister's place at around 9:30 pm. Had a nice time with the family and proper gujarati delicious dinner after a long long time.

13th Sept - Tuesday (LA - Back to Houston):

After spending some time with Chirag, left for Santa Monica Pier. Around 50 miles drive from Irvine. Very beautiful beach and Pier. Had a good time on white sand beach after spending lots of time on galveston's dirty, black sand beaches with weeds. Left back for houston, retuned the car and flew to houston. Reached houston at around 10:30 pm CST, and home at around 11:30 PM.


So overall a good vacation, went as per the plan, could've clubbed couple of more things may be, could've seen the San Diego zoo, if planned little properly. But took it little light because of 3 year old and BOW :)

In the future, would like to go to Vegas with friends and would love to do a camping, hiking boating trip in the Grand canyon.

The Poster

When you sit idle, your mind wanders, it wanders to the distant old memories and most of the times those memories make you smile. So around 10 years back, I was in college (TEN years!!!). We used to stay in the hostel. One morning when I got down from my room, the security guard, who knew us, caught me and gave me a package. I asked who gave you, he mentions a girl on the scooter came and gave him and asked him to give it to me. I asked A GIRL!!! Well that was a surprise if not a shock for sure. Well packaged looked like a poster or calendar of some kind. I went to my room and opened it and found it to be a poster of:

This is not the same poster. I couldn't find originial on google! 

None other than Aishwarya. Now I had a big crush on the ex miss world Aishwarya (I still like her but I guess I have moved on!), and most of my friends were aware of that fully, so that could have been one of them (though I would be really surprised then too!). But who was this mystery girl, I asked all my girl- friends, around in college and some of them even ridiculed me that a GIFT for YOU! why would I do that! So here is the mystery that I am still not able to solve. That poster is still with me though in my cupboard at my home in India, but I am still waiting for that mystery girl to come out one day and tell me it was me!

PS: In a hindsight I think there is a high chance that some of my friends have pulled a trick on me by may be just bribing that security guard and tell him that a girl gave it to him.. Though I would still like to think otherwise :)

Amne hatu ke kai pan kehvay tamne,
Nahoti khabar nahi sehvay tamne

Tame to jivi lesho amara vagar,
Tamara vagar nahi rehvay amne

-by myself (somewhere around 2003)

Translation:
I thought I can say anything to you
Din't know it will be unbearable to you

You will be able to live without me,
How will I live without you

A Short Story - Few pages of a diary

Date 08/23/2009

Dear Diary,

Today Mr. Prakash, tried to talk with me again. I feel he has a biggest crush on me but somehow he has a lot of inferiority complex about himself. I really feel he is a nice person and he can accelerate in his career if he gets little bit confident and if he removes all the negative feelings about himself. He was telling one of his friends when I heard it that he thinks he is unattractive and short and he doesn't know how to talk and how to make friends. I really feel that I should try something for him but I don't want to give any wrong indications. I am really happy in my marriage with Sam and I love Sam like anything

-Shweta

Date 09/12/2009

Dear Diary,

Today, I and Sam saw a hindi movie, one of our favourite and we can just feel similar kind of feelings for each other. DDLJ. One of the most romantic movie ever made. Our love for each other is increasing day by day and there is not even a single moment we can think of where we can leave without each other. Sam gave me a red ruby ring today, very very expensive one and I can't believe he remembered about how much I wanted it six years before when we were dating in college and he was saving for this since last so many month by cutting his taxi bills and eating cheap in lunch hour. I feel I am the most blessed person in this whole world to have sam with me. A man who adores me more and more every day.

-Shweta



Date 10/10/2009

Dear Diary,

Today I had bit of dizziness and was feeling tired. I went to my doctor. As usual he was flirting with me, which I adore by the way, and telling me I am getting more beautiful as I am getting old and how Sam is the luckiest guys in the world. He told as a part of routine thing he is suggesting biopsy. Some how I had bit odd feelings while giving samples for the different tests.I give samples for different test as a part of check up done every year and I don't know what's different today. Reports will be there after 2 weeks anyways!

-Shweta


Date 24/10/2009

Diary,
Today Doc called me and told me he wanted to meet me and Sam as soon as possible. I asked everything ok, he told me nothing to worry just drop by. Sam is out of town to delhi, so I went by myself in the evening. As soon as I entered I felt some different shades on doc's face. He asked where's Sam and I told he's out of town. He told he needs to talk to Sam. I told and forced him what's wrong. He told biopsy results came. I have a last stage of stomach cancer. Doctor is surprised as I never noticed anything wrong with my body till that day and never went to doctor about it. As per doctor I have 12-15 months left in my life. I almost fainted. I told him not to discuss this with Sam and I will tell him at the right time as he will be devastated.

-Shweta


Date 26/11/2009

Dear diary,

Today, again as I am doing since las many days, I again talked with Mr. Prakash, I told him he's the most genuine person I have ever met and he is very cool guy to hang out with. I told him I would love to spend time with him and may be more! I can see almost a twinkle in his eyes. I can see that he was already feeling confident about himself. He even asked me out for dinner. I told him to give me a call in the evening at home and then I can decide. In the evening he called me when me and Sam were having dinner, I stepped out from the dining table and went in another room to talk(we never do that as we share everything with each other). And I tried talking in a voice that looks suspicious to Sam and told Mr. Prakash, how much I adore him and how much I will like to go out with him on the next night. I came out and told Sam that I will be very late tomorrow evening as I had some urgent client meetings scheduled.

-Shweta

Date 28/11/2009

Today, I sent an SMS from Prakash's cell to my cell when I saw him going to rest room about what a wonderful night he had with me and how much he wants that all nights are like that. I made sure that my cell displays his name as unread message when I reached home and put my cell on the table so Sam can read it. I even made a dummy call and pretended talking with Prakash about our future life after my divorce with Sam. Diary, I am feeling awful now but I know whatever I am doing is good for Sam and its better if he hates me so that it will be easier for him to forget me. Meanwhile I can see Mr. Prakash, becoming a very confident person and how he talks with other colleagues and what kind of energy he puts in the work. Every one seems to be surprised by the change and only I know the reason.

-Shweta

Date 10/12/2009

Diary,

Things are going as planned. I am feeling weaker now and dizziness is increasing little bit. Looks like 12-15 months are going to be shorter and I might leave much before that. Sam has started hating me too much and I can see his eyes red and we hardly talked with each other any more. I know he must be feeling really bad but I also know this is better for him. In couple of months I will leave this city and go far away from both of these men. And I am sure whatever I have done is going to help both of this guys in their prersonal life

-Shweta


Date 25/12/2009

Diary,

Today doc called me and told me, that biopsy results were of some other person and due to "minor" mistake it got changed with mine. "Everything is alright" for me ! I am not sure what to do now!

-Shweta


PS: Not completely original, something from childhood memories

Movies I watched this weekend

Guru:

A real class of Mani Ratnam. Whoever says that Abhishek Or Aishwarya can't act, please go and watch the movie. You are surely going to change your opinion. And now Abhi-Ash wedding bells are ringing, if you really want to see the chemistry, which was lagging in previous movies like Dhai Akshar prem ke, kuch na kaho or Umrao Jaan, here is the chemistry :). Anyone should watch this movie for the genius of Mani Ratnam. What a great director can do? He can make a plastic face(!!) do the real acting. A movie based on Dhirubhai Ambani, where Dhirubhai becomes Gurubhai. Really nice plot, great characters, fabulous acting and above all splendid music. You can expect this when two genius meet each other(ARR and MR). I was a fan of Mani before this movie but after watching each of his movie, I'm just getting addicted to him. I think I will have to learn tamil to watch his tamil movies ;). Don't want to tell much here as it is better to go and experience the magic.

Woh Lamhe:

I wanted to watch this movie since some time. The major reason was Shiney Ahuja, Kangana Ranaut and awesome music. Both the actors made a very good impression on me in their previous movies (Gangster). Well it was coming on cable and the print was really nice so I started watching it. In some corner of my mind, I was feeling that I'm going to get bored soon (Mahesh bhatt calling) but as I started watching it I was just getting in to it. First half of the movie was really pacy. With some good performance of both the leading actors. And as I told above, melodious music was just adding spice to it. But I found second half too be quite slow and little bit loud. Mahesh Bhatt could've made this much better. The movie was based on Parveen Babi's story, If it was her real story, I really feel sad for her. And it just shows that the glamorous life brings quite sad and pettier life with it. Overall an average movie. Once watch kinda, on DVD of course:)

Resources

I was thinking about this some time now. Why do we waste any kind of resources?Government is trying so hard to let people know that all the resources are very important. We are still a developing country and most of our country still lives below poverty line. In this kind of situation how can we afford to waste any resources?

Think about food. Our elders taught us when we were kids that never leave anything in your dishes. But are we following it? I have seen horrible pictures of a kid, dying because of hungers somewhere in Somalia, shouldn't we think about them before wasting any of the food items. In our lunch/dinner parties, we order so much and then when people don't turn up we just throw it. Shouldn't we be taking uttermost care before ordering for the food? While eating on buffet also we normally take so much food in our dishes that we hardly able to finish it and all that food we dump in the dustbins. Now next time onwards before throwing the food just look at some picture below and think about it.

About the picture: The photo is "Pulitzer Prize" winner in 1994, during sudane famine. Picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards UN food camp located kms away. The vulture is waiting for child to die so that it can eat it. Three months later, the photographer Kevin Carter, committed suicide due to depression!

Another big example is water. The thought of water scarcity really scares me. Just think what will be the future without water. The water levels in all our rivers are coming down. Most of the villages in Africa don't get water even to drink forget about bathing/washing. Forget about Africa in our country also there are thousands of villages where people have to walk for more than 10 kms many times to get the drinking water. In this kind of situations how can we waste water? Why should our taps leak? why should we waste hell lot of water in our bathing and even our toilets!!!

Take another example, say electricity, people tell anyways we are paying for it. We have enough money then why should we worry about that. But my question is why shouldn't we switch off our tube light/bulb when we don't need it? I know it is not going to affect much to your electricity bills, but if we save electricity, it might be possible for the government to supply those electricity to the villages where still people don't know what electricity is? At least they will able to see light in their life! We do spend so much in decorating our houses, shops, malls with electric bulbs. Shouldn't we be spending lesser electricity there and spend more on development? I'm not telling we all should start living in darkness but wherever possible we can reduce the usage.

If we really want to follow Gandhigiri, from Munnabhai, these are the must principles we should follow. Never waste any resources. However silly it might look.

Thoughts about Ashley

Recently I heard the news of parents of a girl named Ashley, who was mentally disabled, used medical science to prevent the growth of the child. The reason they gave was it is lot easier to handle and take care of the girl if she stays young!!! I am really confused about this situation. At one place it is perfectly unethical to prevent the growth of any human being. But I was just Thinking from her parents’ perspective also. What they should've done? There are many cases we see in our neighborhood that many parents just don't care about the specially-abled child; they live in very pathetic situation. Just move around in the local trains or even any places of worship. So have Ashley’s parents have done something wrong, if they feel they can take care of their child better way if she stays younger as it will be less embarrassing for them.

But just putting more thoughts, credit to CNN-IBN where they had discussion on this. I felt that yes parents don't have any rights to prevent growth of their child. By giving birth, they don't have any rights on the body and life of their child. If you are ready to give a birth to child, it’s
your responsibility to take care of a child even though child is specially-abled. And as one lady concluded on that discussion, how can you leave hope on science. And miracles do happen. Children should be taken as blessings of God. And blessings can come in any form!

End of the Era!

This year 2006 has really been a special and a sad year for all of the sports lovers around the world.

Yes I am talking about the sporting icons those have ended their really great and glittering career this year and that’s also not in a way that any sports lover would’ve expected.

This Year started with the memories of Lance Armstrong, declaring his retirement last year July 2005, his absence was really felt this time at Tour de France. It is never easy to forget someone who has 7 Tour de France wins, 22 individual stages, 11 time trials. And the life which is really inspiration for any one. Yoy don’t find many people in your life time who has a courage and will power like this great man. We salute you sir!


So this was the last year, but this year was also no less. Two Tennis stars of our times, Andre Agassi, Martina Navaratilova. I think Martina was before our time too.

Martina Navaratilova, This woman of substance, surrounding all the controversy around her about her homo-sexual relationship, really proved what a woman or any person can do with the strong determination. You don’t find many players (I doubt any) who can play professional tennis at the age of 50, right! Just to take a look at her achievement 18 Grandslams singles titles, 31 doubles, 10 mixed doubles and total 167 other single titles is something to count. Most of the tennis players like apni Sania would never win these many matches in grandslams as many titles this great sport icon has under her belt.



Then comes another great man, Andre Agassi, This Guy might not be the greatest tennis player ever and might not be in the league of Pete Sampras or or Bjorn Borg, but he is surely the most flamboyant tennis player ever!. Well who can forget this ponny tail, his chest with hell lot of hairs and changing his t-shirts during the match, then he comes back with the fully shaven head and shaven chest too!. He was certainly one of the most crowd puller in any match amd one of the most loved tennis player ever by the tennis supporters.

And yes of course not to forget his tennis acheivemetns, 8 Grandslams, with only the second player in history of professional tennis to have won all the four grandslams, the feat even likes of Pete Sampras also couldn’t achieve. And what else the glittering professional life and more glittering personal life!. I mean not many lads have luxury of having Brooke Shields and Steffi Graff as their wives during the same life time! He is envied by most of the men(if not all) in the world. The Agassi-Graff couple is considered as one of the best and most beautiful sports couple ever!

So continuing with the sporting icons, next comes the man, for whom words are literally not enough. I guess just name is enough to see the spark in anyone's eyes. “ZiZou”. Yes I am talking about the greatest French footballer ever Zinedine Zidane!.

This is the man who always has controversies following him whereever he goes. This 3 times FIFA player of the year, once upon a time most expenisive footballer, sadly will be remembered more for what he did in the World cup final of 2006 (it is shown in the picture below) than what he did in the 1998 final where he made his team won the worldcup single handedly(or should I say single headedly :-)). However nothing can take away that he is one of the greatest footballer of our time.

And the last but not the least, who is according to me the Greatest Sportsman of our time. Michael Schumaker! This guy is still to end his carreer and the last race of his life is still pending but I can gaurantee you this person will be the most missed sports person from next year. I mean you can’t think of F1 without Schumi, you can't think of Ferrari without Schumi. Ferrari and Schmi have become synonyms for eachother over the time. This person has all the records of F1 under his belt. 7 championship titles, 91 race wins, 154 podium finishes, 68 pole position… . You name it and Schumi has it.

7 times F1 world champion, couldn’t have asked for lesser than winning a championship in his retirement year and he was going for it till the race in Japan. But there is always something that anyone can not control but the destiny. Still championship is not over but it looks next to impossible for this greatest man to win the championship, after engine failure when he was leading the race in Suzuka. However I have my fingers crossed and I really hope that something (I really don't know what but something, may be crash for Alonso) unusual happens and this my favourite wins the championship before hanging his helmet!

The sad thing is almost all of the above except Lance Armstrong, couldn’t end their career in a way any sport lover would’ve loved to see it. Agassi and Navaratilova couldn’t win the Grandslam before getting retired, ZiZou made one of the biggest controversy in his last match of FIFA worldcup before getting retired and not winning the worldcup for his team, and Schumi is also struggling because of destiny to win the championship before ending his carreer.

This post is dedicated to one and only my favourite “Schumi”. I seriously hope some miracle to happen to make Schumi world champion before getting retired.

Gandhi - A divine man or a devil?

After watching Lage raho munnabhai, I was very excited. And as I have a great respect for Gandhi, It was a delight for me to watch a movie superbly made using Gandhi's ideology in today's sense.

Ok, but today in my office, I had a real discussion about Gandhi and his ideology and that person was arguing that because of Gandhi freedom was delayed for atleast 10-15 years and the only good thing that Gandhi did for the country, was partition !!!!.

Ok and then I visited some community on orkut and there again I find people bashing Gandhi and his ideology. So this again makes me disheartened.

I have found after discussing Gandhi and his ideology with many people that nowadays it has become a fashion in indian youth specially, to blame Gandhi and his ideology. May be this is the "In -thing" for them.

I really want to know what common Indian really think about Gandhi.

• Was Gandhi to be blamed (or given credit as one of my friend was giving!!) for partition?
• Was because of Gandhi our independence got delayed?
• Is Gandhi responsible for Subhash chandra Bose not getting his dues, as a freedom fighter for India (That's what many Bengalis believe, no offense here to Bengali people but this is what I have seen )?
• Was Gandhi to be blamed for not requesting english government to not to give death sentence to Bhagat singh and company?

I have greatest regards for Gandhi and his ideology. I will really like to put some of his ideology in the practice in my real life, I don't know how much I will succeed in that but surely want to try.

A Trip To Hampi


I was planning to write something since long but somehow not getting in to it. Well finally I am starting with about one of my trip outside bangalore. The Hampi-A historical place.

Chirag & I are always planning for some outing on every weekends however it doesn't materialize most of the time as short of friends and grp as always.

Ok so here there was a long weekend on independence day, many times I feel what's the special about 15th August. It has now just become another holiday for most of us. Shouldn't we all be doing something special to be proud of our freedom? May be some small gathering in all the office and a small flag hosting ceremony will also do. But nowadays since many of us work in MNCs, for many of us, 4th of July is more important then 15th of Aug. I heard Many BPOs declare holiday on 4th of Jul and not on 15th of Aug in India. However no reliable source....

Okay coming back to the topic, we were planning so many things on this weekend. Going to Goa, no tickets available from Bangalore, no flight, no bus, no train. Man!! People plan really early now a days and anyways we didn't have any group so may be Goa some other time! So finally after considering many places we came to one place, Hampi, weather was good, not so hot and bit of cloudy so good time to visit. Finally, we couldn't gather many friends so we two only decided to go. We planned minimum 3 days trip and visit hampi, near by places like badami, bijapur etc etc.

Well, again we didn't have tickets and Chirag some how made me ready to travel by local bus. After a long time, it was a long journey for me in the local bus. Well but to tell you the truth, journey was much much better than my anticipation. Since from Bangalore, it is full national highway till our destination Hospet. and it was quiet a smooth journey, However I wished seats were better!! but overall ok journey. It took less than six hours form Bangalore to reach to Hospet.

After reaching Hospet, first thing we did was of course looking for hotel. There are 3-4 hotels near by bus stand. But the first answer that they give is no room available. Well it was a surprise for us. But in the second hotel after making some request he gave us a room. We slept there for couple of hours and then got ready to go to Hampi.

Hampi is 13 kms from Hospet and it takes around 20-25 mins to reach there. After every 5 mins there is a local bus so it was not an issue at all. Once you reach Hampi, you realized that, this is much much better place then your imagination. I mean we expected it to quiet a dull and a dry place as it is just historical one. But to our surprise, it is well maintained by government, with very good roads, and also greenery all around. May be the season for us was just perfect. We visited the temple, first as it is near to bus-stop. Quiet a huge temple and kind of a typical one too. I think it was called Gopuram. It was a good place to visit. There are many small shops and some restaurant to feed our stomach out side the temple. We stayed there for around 2 hours.

After that there was some personal problem and we have to come to conclusion that we will have to finish the hampi in one day and the next day we'll have to leave the place. Well now what's the option? Our own Indian auto rickshaw-wala is there for our help. He told us for a nominal fees of 200 bucks, he will take us to all the places, mentioned in the map (we got a map after getting down at hampi bus -stand) . Again, not a bad choice, as we can move around all the places in 4 hours or so.

So here our trip started. Rickshaw wala took us to most of the places. Many places are not in proper shape because of wear and tear of time and weather but many are well maintained. We visited couple of places like Lotus mahal, Sun Temple, The world famous stone Rath( only 4 places around the world has it), Elephant stable, and some more, which I am not able to recall rite now. And over all it was a good experience to be there.



So in the end, I can conclude, Hampi is a good place to go for 2-3 days trip. I think a good weekend gate away also. There are some places that you can visit by walking, or you can even hire a bicycle, roads are pretty good and it should be fun ride and visit places. For one day you can even go for a trek with the complete stretch of a river. If you are in a big group you will enjoy more, but yes the best season to go there will be from Aug-Jan when it is not so hot!

So, I will surely like to visit this once more, with more time to spend there.

To check out some of the photos, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/chickyguy/. And also put some comments. Someone, will surely love that :)