It has been quite a long time since I blogged or wrote any article. Although many of my friends had asked or rather questioned me on the same I just could not (key-in..?) pen down any of my thoughts. I was little scared now on whether I will lose all my writing skills if I don’t act in time. I decided I will definitely write something this weekend why chumma listen something from someone..? (Chumma - means simply in Tamil).
Circa 2008 December! One fine evening there was some discussion going on in my house with close friends on 'awareness on our health', 'maintaining good diet', 'Walking, Running, Walkathon and Marathon etc., all high-end stuff for an ordinary soul like me you know..! But after some time I could not resist myself and I too boasted of doing something great in this space aka Indian Politicians. I declared or rather took bhishma pratigya that I will one day definitely make walking a regular pratice.Like a joshful project manager I even published my project execution strategy to the loving audience.
Hey stop... Before we can go any further, we need a flash back here to understand my PES(Project Execution Strategy). I live in southern part of Bangalore in JP Nagar 9th Phase close to Anjanapura. This is about 10 Kms from Jayanagar, 7 Kms from Banashankari temple and about 18 Kms from Majestic. I have never walked more thank 2 Kms at a stretch in last 2 years. Last time I actually walked was somewhere in June 2007 with my family in Central Park, New York and places around the same. It was an exhaustive walk since morning about 10 Kms in all. I am fit and fine (not a 6 Pack definitely, I am a sweet ‘Family Pack’ as my friend Ashoka puts it!) and have not undergone any major surgeries so far. I have the confidence that I can walk up to 50 Kms in a day (This just a gut feel, does not involve any WBS or FP analysis.).Why did not walk for so long is because of my laziness...! (Can I really walk that distance??!!)
Accordingly my strategy for walkathon would be...I would try walking on some weekend till Banashankari Temple from home which is about 7 kms... and then further enhance my confidence by increasing the distance...and one find day I will walk 50 Kms in a day.
With every one of you onto same page, let us get back to present! June -09! I and my close ones had almost forgotten about my promise of walking long back. But an opportunity came down this weekend knocking on my doors. Last week, I had given my car for servicing and had to commute to office by my two wheeler. So when I took delivery of the vehicle, I had both two wheeler and car in my office on a single day. Taking home both the vehicles to home on the same day was a challenge or I may have to come on weekend to office to get my Activa Honda. More over there is no direct bus service to west campus from my locality. But our idea man Yashavanth made my life simple and gave a suggestion our colleague Nithin had come to office without his bike. It would be better if he takes the Honda home. It is easy to pick that up from him as he stays in Jayanagar. I readily agreed and passed on the keys to Nithin. He drove home my Honda and I left for my place in my newly serviced car.
Came Saturday and I had to pick up my Honda from Nithin. This is the opportunity where in I felt I can execute my plan of walking for 10 Kms.But would every one appreciate and support my idea really..? No idea. So I just told my wife and kids that I am going to Jayanagar to pick the two wheeler and will be back in 2-3 Hrs. My wife gave a long list of grocery to be brought and my kids said "Appaji, bring some majaa katt from Jayanagar". That means I have to bring some surprise for them. Majaa katt is a kannada word quite frequently used in North Karnataka region. It means 'something interesting’ or 'some surprise'. I have successfully added this word to the vocabulary of Neha and Moksha, the loving kids of my friends Shobha and Gangadhar who live in New Jersey, US for last 18 years. Whenever I visit them, the kids welcome me saying "Mummy, look, majaa katt uncle has come to meet us! ".
It was 6 minutes past 9 in the morning. The cloudy Weather, very rare in recent days, was just more than ideal for a walk. Temperature was around a cool cucumber 20-25 degree centigrades.I stepped out of my house and started off towards Jayanagar. I had my projected estimates to cover approximately 6 Kms per hour. I kept myself a safe target of 2 Hrs to reach Nithin's house.
Ours is an extension area and no BMTC buses come inside the layout. I took about 4 minutes to come out of the layout and reach nearest bus stop. This is the main road, which got recently tarred and now drainage is being constructed. One could see the mud dug out of drainage and all the construction material lying on the road. There was no foot path because of this reason. Children and elders have to be more careful in night times to avoid these big drainages. I
I walked a little further and reached next speed breaker. I remembered that my car and two wheeler never pass smoothly over this speed breaker. I got to know the reason now. This was not a scientifically laid speed breakers, but a raw unused electric pole, placed across the road. From there I could see one such customized speed breaker within a distance of 100 mtrs. Someone told me the people in this locality do not want any vehicles to ply on this road and have put up these speed breakers. There were lots of kids running around and playing on the road. Actually I avoid this stretch when coming by car. There is a school on the left side and you can always see two trucks parked there. It is very narrow lane to drive. Within distance I could see one more official BMPP speed breaker. So in all there were three within 100 mtrs. But as you know BMTC busses don’t care for any one. All the buses ply on this main road only and children have to manage on their own. So far so good! Nothing major has happened in last 5 years. People are still safe.
But one thing is for sure... this road is always bustling with lot of activities and one can walk down on this road freely even at 11AM in the night. Now I had reached glass factory where road becomes quite wider and easy to drive. But there is a blind curve and most of the vehicles come at very high speed. There is no good foot path. It is quite dangerous for the vehicles in both the directions and even more so for a pedestrian. After a walk of about 20 minutes I had covered close to 1.8 Kms and reached Harinagar cross.
This is Harinagar bus stop and one can see a classical combination of Bangalore bus stops here. A Travel/tourist ticket booking shop, a bakery, a darshini, a STD/ISD, A xerox shop and a Temple. You must be wondering whether we missed one special thing here. If you glance on your right towards Kohinoor road, you can very well see a bar and restaurant, just next to the densely populated residential layout! Wow this bus stop is a complete package in one place. J
I proceeded further and noticed that Konanakunte has grown by leaps and bounds during recent years. It was not the same locality some years back. If you recall the history Konanakunte was a distant village from Bangalore. When late prime Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated way back in 1991, the assassinates Sivarasan and gang had taken refuge in this village. Karnataka and Tamilnadu police and Indian CBI were on man hunt to trace this gang. At the end, in a major commando operation, they were all surrounded and got killed or rather surrendered to Cyanide. The name Konanakunte came up on the pages of world media overnight.
When I bought a site in this locality, my close friends used to exclaim "Oh that place ... where Sivarasan was hiding himself"! Now much water has flown under the bridge and many would have even forgotten the history. But out of curiosity I was looking for the house that house where they were hiding and I could not succeed. But later I found a news report in Times of India saying that the owner of that house tried hard to re-rent that house after commando operation and no one really came up. At last he got fed up, and changed the appearance of the house, renovated most of the parts and began living there with his family.
People’s interest on this history invoked recently when a Kannada movie by name 'Cyanide' on this subject was released. It was a runaway hit. I would recommend you have it in your DVD collection. Good one! For the moment, it was time for me to feel proud that I am living in a locality with some historical importance! :)
I was enjoying my walking, watching people, vehicles, surroundings and thinking for myself and traversing the journey. People say they get bored very easily when they are alone. I would not agree with that. You can wear your thinking cap when you are lonely. This is the time when you need to work on your personality and give finer touches to it. You are like a student who is out on a trip to explore most of the interesting things in the world.
GOD is great! Each person in this world is unique. It is a trait just to watch these wonderful creations from distance, then go to them, talk to them and study them and their personality and get close to them. Even cities are no different from them. Each city offers something unique. And I thoroughly enjoy this City exploration hobby. I have been to few good cities in India and my experiences have been wonderful. I was in Madurai (Tamilnadu) in 2005-06 for close to 4 months. I did not have too many friends there. Language was a barrier, but being alone I explored the city (Of course by walk!) and thoroughly enjoyed my stay there. I will write about that some other time.
I had now covered 3.5 Kms of distance and the time was 9:42AM, it is now Konanakunte cross where you will hit our state highway Bangalore - Kanakapura Road. I paused for while at the traffic signal and gazed at an auto coming from Banashankari side was taking left turn towards Konanakunte. I saw a man in the back seat holding few bamboo sticks and one dome like structure stretched outside the window. This is quite a familiar scene on Bangalore roads. It seems someone was dead in the locality and that passenger was actually carrying all the necessary accessories required for final procession of the dead person. This structure usually made of bamboo is used for carrying the deceased person till the graveyard during the funeral. The structure is called vimaan or Imaan. It is a box like structure based on four long bamboo sticks to lift it and a spherical dome structure on top of it. The deceased will be placed inside this structure in a sitting position. If you watch from a distance, it looks like a mini temple
Four persons will be carrying the vimaan on their shoulders till they reach the destination i.e. rudrabhoomi or graveyard. They might change on rotation as and when they get tired. This vimaan is used in particular communities like Lingayat and others and not all. As soon the person dies, the elders in the community/locality get together and begin the process of last rites. Whatever may be the position in which person dies, the body, legs and hands are folded and adjusted so that the person is in a sitting position like meditation/padmasana position. This is done so that the deceased can be made to sit inside Vimaan without any issues. If you delay further the dead body stiffens and hands and legs cannot be folded. It is very important activity.
In Bangalore people actually create this bamboo structure after the person dies. In north Karnataka and other district places there community Mutts which have dedicated wooden Vimaan, fitted with required accessories always available for peoples usage. These vimaans will be rented out to people whenever someone dies and returned to mutts after the procedure is completed. In Bamboo structures, the neck of the deceased is tied with a soft cloth to the vimaan so that the body does not move or fall off on face during procession. But in wooden Vimaan , there are ready made nuts and bolts which will be used for this purpose. Vimaan is decorated with flowers and utmost care is taken it to make it look good because this is the last journey of that person.
Hmmmm..Did we deviate somewhere..? No.. ! Wherever there is hyperlink, we have to click that and see what is there..? That was good piece of information on Vimaan. Now let us come back to main hyperlink. Before that let me cross the road..OOooo…OOhhohooo… so many vehicles man! They just don’t have patience! Ok.. At last I did..!
Now I am on the main Kananakapura road heading towards Banashankari Temple from Konanakunte.
(To be continued..!)
Circa 2008 December! One fine evening there was some discussion going on in my house with close friends on 'awareness on our health', 'maintaining good diet', 'Walking, Running, Walkathon and Marathon etc., all high-end stuff for an ordinary soul like me you know..! But after some time I could not resist myself and I too boasted of doing something great in this space aka Indian Politicians. I declared or rather took bhishma pratigya that I will one day definitely make walking a regular pratice.Like a joshful project manager I even published my project execution strategy to the loving audience.
Hey stop... Before we can go any further, we need a flash back here to understand my PES(Project Execution Strategy). I live in southern part of Bangalore in JP Nagar 9th Phase close to Anjanapura. This is about 10 Kms from Jayanagar, 7 Kms from Banashankari temple and about 18 Kms from Majestic. I have never walked more thank 2 Kms at a stretch in last 2 years. Last time I actually walked was somewhere in June 2007 with my family in Central Park, New York and places around the same. It was an exhaustive walk since morning about 10 Kms in all. I am fit and fine (not a 6 Pack definitely, I am a sweet ‘Family Pack’ as my friend Ashoka puts it!) and have not undergone any major surgeries so far. I have the confidence that I can walk up to 50 Kms in a day (This just a gut feel, does not involve any WBS or FP analysis.).Why did not walk for so long is because of my laziness...! (Can I really walk that distance??!!)
Accordingly my strategy for walkathon would be...I would try walking on some weekend till Banashankari Temple from home which is about 7 kms... and then further enhance my confidence by increasing the distance...and one find day I will walk 50 Kms in a day.
With every one of you onto same page, let us get back to present! June -09! I and my close ones had almost forgotten about my promise of walking long back. But an opportunity came down this weekend knocking on my doors. Last week, I had given my car for servicing and had to commute to office by my two wheeler. So when I took delivery of the vehicle, I had both two wheeler and car in my office on a single day. Taking home both the vehicles to home on the same day was a challenge or I may have to come on weekend to office to get my Activa Honda. More over there is no direct bus service to west campus from my locality. But our idea man Yashavanth made my life simple and gave a suggestion our colleague Nithin had come to office without his bike. It would be better if he takes the Honda home. It is easy to pick that up from him as he stays in Jayanagar. I readily agreed and passed on the keys to Nithin. He drove home my Honda and I left for my place in my newly serviced car.
Came Saturday and I had to pick up my Honda from Nithin. This is the opportunity where in I felt I can execute my plan of walking for 10 Kms.But would every one appreciate and support my idea really..? No idea. So I just told my wife and kids that I am going to Jayanagar to pick the two wheeler and will be back in 2-3 Hrs. My wife gave a long list of grocery to be brought and my kids said "Appaji, bring some majaa katt from Jayanagar". That means I have to bring some surprise for them. Majaa katt is a kannada word quite frequently used in North Karnataka region. It means 'something interesting’ or 'some surprise'. I have successfully added this word to the vocabulary of Neha and Moksha, the loving kids of my friends Shobha and Gangadhar who live in New Jersey, US for last 18 years. Whenever I visit them, the kids welcome me saying "Mummy, look, majaa katt uncle has come to meet us! ".
It was 6 minutes past 9 in the morning. The cloudy Weather, very rare in recent days, was just more than ideal for a walk. Temperature was around a cool cucumber 20-25 degree centigrades.I stepped out of my house and started off towards Jayanagar. I had my projected estimates to cover approximately 6 Kms per hour. I kept myself a safe target of 2 Hrs to reach Nithin's house.
Ours is an extension area and no BMTC buses come inside the layout. I took about 4 minutes to come out of the layout and reach nearest bus stop. This is the main road, which got recently tarred and now drainage is being constructed. One could see the mud dug out of drainage and all the construction material lying on the road. There was no foot path because of this reason. Children and elders have to be more careful in night times to avoid these big drainages. I
I walked a little further and reached next speed breaker. I remembered that my car and two wheeler never pass smoothly over this speed breaker. I got to know the reason now. This was not a scientifically laid speed breakers, but a raw unused electric pole, placed across the road. From there I could see one such customized speed breaker within a distance of 100 mtrs. Someone told me the people in this locality do not want any vehicles to ply on this road and have put up these speed breakers. There were lots of kids running around and playing on the road. Actually I avoid this stretch when coming by car. There is a school on the left side and you can always see two trucks parked there. It is very narrow lane to drive. Within distance I could see one more official BMPP speed breaker. So in all there were three within 100 mtrs. But as you know BMTC busses don’t care for any one. All the buses ply on this main road only and children have to manage on their own. So far so good! Nothing major has happened in last 5 years. People are still safe.
But one thing is for sure... this road is always bustling with lot of activities and one can walk down on this road freely even at 11AM in the night. Now I had reached glass factory where road becomes quite wider and easy to drive. But there is a blind curve and most of the vehicles come at very high speed. There is no good foot path. It is quite dangerous for the vehicles in both the directions and even more so for a pedestrian. After a walk of about 20 minutes I had covered close to 1.8 Kms and reached Harinagar cross.
This is Harinagar bus stop and one can see a classical combination of Bangalore bus stops here. A Travel/tourist ticket booking shop, a bakery, a darshini, a STD/ISD, A xerox shop and a Temple. You must be wondering whether we missed one special thing here. If you glance on your right towards Kohinoor road, you can very well see a bar and restaurant, just next to the densely populated residential layout! Wow this bus stop is a complete package in one place. J
I proceeded further and noticed that Konanakunte has grown by leaps and bounds during recent years. It was not the same locality some years back. If you recall the history Konanakunte was a distant village from Bangalore. When late prime Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated way back in 1991, the assassinates Sivarasan and gang had taken refuge in this village. Karnataka and Tamilnadu police and Indian CBI were on man hunt to trace this gang. At the end, in a major commando operation, they were all surrounded and got killed or rather surrendered to Cyanide. The name Konanakunte came up on the pages of world media overnight.
When I bought a site in this locality, my close friends used to exclaim "Oh that place ... where Sivarasan was hiding himself"! Now much water has flown under the bridge and many would have even forgotten the history. But out of curiosity I was looking for the house that house where they were hiding and I could not succeed. But later I found a news report in Times of India saying that the owner of that house tried hard to re-rent that house after commando operation and no one really came up. At last he got fed up, and changed the appearance of the house, renovated most of the parts and began living there with his family.
People’s interest on this history invoked recently when a Kannada movie by name 'Cyanide' on this subject was released. It was a runaway hit. I would recommend you have it in your DVD collection. Good one! For the moment, it was time for me to feel proud that I am living in a locality with some historical importance! :)
I was enjoying my walking, watching people, vehicles, surroundings and thinking for myself and traversing the journey. People say they get bored very easily when they are alone. I would not agree with that. You can wear your thinking cap when you are lonely. This is the time when you need to work on your personality and give finer touches to it. You are like a student who is out on a trip to explore most of the interesting things in the world.
GOD is great! Each person in this world is unique. It is a trait just to watch these wonderful creations from distance, then go to them, talk to them and study them and their personality and get close to them. Even cities are no different from them. Each city offers something unique. And I thoroughly enjoy this City exploration hobby. I have been to few good cities in India and my experiences have been wonderful. I was in Madurai (Tamilnadu) in 2005-06 for close to 4 months. I did not have too many friends there. Language was a barrier, but being alone I explored the city (Of course by walk!) and thoroughly enjoyed my stay there. I will write about that some other time.
I had now covered 3.5 Kms of distance and the time was 9:42AM, it is now Konanakunte cross where you will hit our state highway Bangalore - Kanakapura Road. I paused for while at the traffic signal and gazed at an auto coming from Banashankari side was taking left turn towards Konanakunte. I saw a man in the back seat holding few bamboo sticks and one dome like structure stretched outside the window. This is quite a familiar scene on Bangalore roads. It seems someone was dead in the locality and that passenger was actually carrying all the necessary accessories required for final procession of the dead person. This structure usually made of bamboo is used for carrying the deceased person till the graveyard during the funeral. The structure is called vimaan or Imaan. It is a box like structure based on four long bamboo sticks to lift it and a spherical dome structure on top of it. The deceased will be placed inside this structure in a sitting position. If you watch from a distance, it looks like a mini temple
Four persons will be carrying the vimaan on their shoulders till they reach the destination i.e. rudrabhoomi or graveyard. They might change on rotation as and when they get tired. This vimaan is used in particular communities like Lingayat and others and not all. As soon the person dies, the elders in the community/locality get together and begin the process of last rites. Whatever may be the position in which person dies, the body, legs and hands are folded and adjusted so that the person is in a sitting position like meditation/padmasana position. This is done so that the deceased can be made to sit inside Vimaan without any issues. If you delay further the dead body stiffens and hands and legs cannot be folded. It is very important activity.
In Bangalore people actually create this bamboo structure after the person dies. In north Karnataka and other district places there community Mutts which have dedicated wooden Vimaan, fitted with required accessories always available for peoples usage. These vimaans will be rented out to people whenever someone dies and returned to mutts after the procedure is completed. In Bamboo structures, the neck of the deceased is tied with a soft cloth to the vimaan so that the body does not move or fall off on face during procession. But in wooden Vimaan , there are ready made nuts and bolts which will be used for this purpose. Vimaan is decorated with flowers and utmost care is taken it to make it look good because this is the last journey of that person.
Hmmmm..Did we deviate somewhere..? No.. ! Wherever there is hyperlink, we have to click that and see what is there..? That was good piece of information on Vimaan. Now let us come back to main hyperlink. Before that let me cross the road..OOooo…OOhhohooo… so many vehicles man! They just don’t have patience! Ok.. At last I did..!
Now I am on the main Kananakapura road heading towards Banashankari Temple from Konanakunte.
(To be continued..!)
