Bowled em!

Yesterday was no different from a regular Saturday. Go meet some friends. Make plans to watch a movie….and then hang out somewhere discussing arbit stuff.

Me, Haathi and Daku went to watch Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic. Wonder why we went to watch such a kiddo movie. But the fact that the other movies on offer had got hopeless reviews did not help our cause. The movie was ok-ok. Clumsy animation as expected. A Rani Mukherjee that did not look all that appealing. Kids that were adorable. But the surprise package, and maybe inappropriate given the plot of this movie, was that one song called ‘Lazy Lamhe’ picturised on a sultry Amisha Patel with barely any clothes on her ! Some critics have applauded Kunal Kohli for utilising ‘the complete potential’ of Amisha Patel in this song. Lol! I can only interpret that comment in one way.

After the movie, we decided to go for some bowling. We went to the nearby Star City bowling alley. While playing, I observed this one particular guy stirke on most occassions. I noticed his run up and then the release. It was not too different from the underarm leg break. That was the obvious part. But the surprising thing was his run up and then arm motion after the release. It was different.

Given that I am ‘brilliant’ at this sport, I decided to go and talk to him and learn a thing or two about bowling. I did learn a lot.

Me: Hey you know so much about this sport. You should be playing for India man!

X : I do ( flashing his Team India badge at me)

I was clean bowled!

My Well Deserved Break

There was once a time when I was eager to go to Bangalore and start a whole new chapter in my life…engineering…hostel…friends…..pesit…..everything was just a part of it….

That was four years back. Today the scenario is completely different.

Somehow Bangalore is driving me nuts….with its traffic…with its people…..with the weather…with the expenses….and on and on and on…..

There are two ways to overcome this. One is to run away from this place at this very first opportunity that you might get. The second one is to stay here and hang out with friends who can make even an experience at hell enjoyable.
But when you combine both……Aha! that becomes brilliant!

Abhay, Daku and I had exactly that experience a few days back when we were on our trip through the dakshina kannada district.
Our first stop was Jog Falls. Now the last time I had gone to Jog was something like 10-15 years back with my family. Jog looked like a monster then. This time around it looked very very timid. Disappointed at not being able to see the falls in its true form, we decided to travel right down untill the very last stone that was available for vantage.

As it turns out…the descent was pretty simple…but we were left gasping for breath by the time we made it back to the top again. But it was all worth it!

We then headed off to Murdeshwara. For those of you who are not aware of this place, the place is actually a temple that is based right on the sea shore. Just the scenic beauty of this place can mesmerize you. About a decade back, there were plans to build a huge Shiva statue along side the main temple. That Shiva Statue had undergone some damage recently and is now the renovation work is now almost complete. We reached this place at about 5 in the evening, perhaps the best of the day to be at a place like this.

Along with the Shiva statue, there are now couple of other statues that have been built. All of them obviously add to the beauty of this place. I was surprised to see people paragliding on the Murdeshwar beach. I was not aware of this. Unfortunately, we wanted to have a glimpse of the Marvante beach and therefore I decided not to try it out. I mean after all, Murdeshwar is not that far away from my place… so I can always go for it some other time.

If Murdeshwar’s beauty was mesmerizing, Marvanthe’s sheer power was at times frightening on the very first glimpse. Especially when she is in her widest form she makes you look small and insignificant.

As my Dad aptly put it

Marvanthe is a like a beautiful child. At first glance, you would want to go near it and
admire its beauty. But beware! Dont even think about hugging it.

The next day we headed off to Udupi and Manipal. We were planning to visit the Udupi Krishna Temple but looking at the huge queue outside we changed our minds and decided to offer our prayers from outside itself. We then headed off to Manipal, had lunch at Dollops and then decided to head off to Manipal End Point before heading towards Koradi Beach.

Not a lot of people are actually aware of Koradi Beach. But in my experience it is one of the more cleaner and safest beaches on that particular coast line. Sure it may not be as beautiful as the Kapu beach without the light house and stuff, or it may not route to an island as beautiful as the St Marys Island like the Malpe beach. But it can still provide you with the same calm and peace that you would get with the other beaches. Personally, I love it when I have a beach which is not very well known to the general public and as a result is not very crowded. That sort of makes it look as if the beach belongs to me and just me , as if it was in my very own backyard….however silly that thought might seem.

We headed back to Shimoga from my place Kundapur, and then decided to take a train from Shimoga to Bangalore to round off a near perfect trip.

On the way out of Kundapur, we found another interesting site : a Hanuman statue. As per the records, this statue is the world’s tallest Hanuman statue. I really need to confirm this. But no matter what the record books say, this certainly is a gigantic statue of Bajrang Bali.
Again not many people around the place are actually aware that such a statue exists near their place. One probable reason is because this statue is beautifully masked by the presence of palm trees all around it.

I shall upload all the pics from the trip on my Flickr account asap.

Dont let darkness enshroud the light in your life.

Best Friends!