10 Oct

A trip to Mewar, Raj – Pushkar and Jaipur

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A small and picterusque town famous for one and onky temple of Brahma Ji, the town is also famous for the foreigners coming to the time to learn Yoga and instrumental music in the streets of Pushkar and numerous cafes adorning the streets. I can vouch for only temple perhaps my main motive was that only so I did,nt bother to look out for the guests from abroad or cafes. After inquiring my way to the temple of Brahma Ji, I straight away drove in that direction until I reached the place where Ghats were located. I thought may be temple is located in the centre of the sarovar there. So we all went towards the Ghat area and the thing that I  wanted to avoid at all costs followed us , hounding by various priests(pandas to have one or other form of puja for salvation of soul. As a person I m dead against these things as it seems to me more as an economic activity of these priests, nothing more(my personal opinion). Many persons were involved there in one or other ceremonies per their beliefs. But I did,nt want to listen to these priests about all this. One priest said “Unless you take bath in these Ghats and perform a puja your visit to Brahma temple would be incomplete” Why so? I just asked myself. After enquiring again about the temple from a family , we came to know that it was just on the next end of the street. I just pulled my family members from there hearing this. While walking towards the temple, in one corner , there was a small shop(PANDIT JI KI LASSI). Iski story baad mein bataoonga.

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Chennai Temples

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It is a very beautiful temple with numerous fixed glass windows permitting maximum sunlight thus saving lot of energy. All windows are nicely painted with mythological pictures. Beautiful wall painting, pillars and a huge darshan hall makes this temple very attractive. I really like the wooden doors of the enclosures where deities reside. It is a huge wooden door with beautiful carvings. Every Sunday , a special programme is held in this temple which includes bhajan, Bhagwat Gita course, Aarti and at 1315 hrs lunch Prasadam for everyone.

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Delhi to Hyderabad By Road – Road trip – Part 1

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The road conditions were really good looked like the same good roads from Krishnagiri to Chennai. Smooth 2 Lane Highway.

There were some minor ghat sections on the way which were super smooth laid and the car was able to do them at 80+

I had initially planned for stay at Sagar, but the roads were inviting and on the Highway I missed the entry into Sagar town, so I thought of stretching the limits and reach the next town which I hit.

It was already 7:30 and it was dark all around, stopped at a roadside Dhaba for my dinner and enquired about the roads ahead and the general safety in the area, once assured, I took a decision to venture ahead and reach Narsinghpur which was another 150 Kms from Sagar.

The Road till Narsinghpur was not complete fully and had a lot of diversions in between with non existent roads. As I had my last petrol filled at Jhansi, and I was planning to start early morning from my stoppage to Nagpur, I had to get the fuel filled so that I have a tank full in the morning. Before Narsingpur I passed a small town of Kairali and found a good petrol pump.

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A trip to Mewar, Rajasthan – Ajmer Sharif

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The hotel owner had warned me beforehand that Ajmer was a congested place and rightly so I also observed that. As usual we had no bookings and were in search of a decent budget hotel with parking facility. Mistakenly I asked a man about the way to Railwat Station as our experience has told us that such places could be found near Railway stations and Bus Stands. This time I was wrong and what I encountered was a very congested area full of crowd near Railway Station. My car was in chaos now with cycles and rickshaws all over it. It seemed to me very difficult to me to come out of it but anyhow came out of it nd just drove to a wide road about 1 km before the Railway Station. HOTEL NAGPAL was the sign board that attracted me. I  just parked my car and asked for the 3-bed room and parking facility. The hotel had both the facilities and I checked in. Tariff at that moment was Rs. 800/. Time was about 8.15 P.M and we were very confused whether to go for Dargah Ziyarat at that time or early morning. My wife suggested to go for  walk up to the Dargah of Khwaza Moinuddin Chishti  and try our luck at that time only.

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Ride to Rajasthan (Pune to Mt Abu) – Return trip, Reaching Vadodra

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After some discussion we decided to start and see where we are by 5 pm.

Hats off to Brzzz and the Biker community – A Biker is a fighter – We conquered against all odds

After 5 days 1400 kms, 40 degrees, we were all ready to fight. Ayush was not feeling very well waiting at the mechanic shop so he started moving, and he was feeling better so it was better that he starts covering as much ground as possible.

We decided that I will definitely move and reach as much as I can even till late night so that I could reach Pune by next day evening. Prateek agreed to come with me.

So now we had split in 3 groups … Ayush was riding alone, I was riding at High Speeds of 110-120 kmph with Prateek and all the others were riding together.

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A trip to Mewar – Chittorgarh

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Though I had visited the city a long time ago, I had only fade memories of the massive fort considered once upon a  time to be impregnable.Chittor seemed to me as not so clean town and unplanned in a haphazard way, quite contrast to Udaipur. After entering the town I had to ask the way to the fort from passerbys quite a few time. At last we reached the fort , entered the complex and stopped my car at ticket counter. My first enquiry was whether we can roam about in the fort in car or we had to go on foot. The answer relieved me Yeah it was in car.hahahaha……First monument that we came face to face inside the complex was that of Kumbha’s palace.

This was the place of erstwhile Maharanas of Mewar before Udaipur was founded due to paucity of water in this area, it is said. The palace consisted of underground cellars where Rani Padmini is said to have performed Jauhar Pratha. Roaming in this massive monument gave me a nostalgic feel and I  also thought about the flimsiness of life

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Firozabad – Fifth City of Delhi

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Nothing beats the romance and magic of visiting a monument in Delhi on a wintry Sunday afternoon. The light December breeze has cleared the smog. The air seems almost crisp. Kotla Firoz Shah is an oasis in the middle of the city. It is hard to imagine that exactly 614 years ago on an equally beautiful December day this fortress was being plundered. Soak in the atmosphere sprawled on the green grass under the flitting sun. You can see Delhi’s first skyscraper Vikas Minar in the south, the IG Stadium in the east, floodlights of Firoz Shah Kotla Stadium just yards away, and for company you have crows, mynahs, eagles, dogs and even cats. Chat up the security guard for nuggets of information.

Apparently, this is the only place in Delhi supposed to be the abode of Djinns or spirits. Believers come and light up diyas and incense sticks. Some people even leave written requests. The steady stream of believers assures that wishes are being granted by the Djinns. Thursday is the day when most people come with their petitions and leave offerings. It is believed that the Djinns love Delhi so much that they cannot bear to see it deserted. The day beliefs die, city dies and you die.

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Valparai Series – Part 4

Valparai Series – Part 4

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To reach the Nalla Mudi view point, one has to walk through where else but the Nalla Mudi tea estate. A rather stern looking Forest guard stopped us with a Sorry, No Entry, Elephant problem. He was not however as fierce as he looked and easily succumbed to our pleading that we had come so far from the distant planet of Bombay, so how could we go home without seeing this place?

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A trip to Mewar – Nathdwara and Ekling Ji

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But I could not take this decision till we reached the main entrance point of the temple. There was no queue at all. Worst fear of temple being closed down for that day was coming true and  I  just told that boy to take the money and arrange for the Darshan. His answer was money afterwards , firstly Darshan of the Lord . He ordered us( yeah, order) to deposit our camera and mobiles at the counter  quickly. I deposited the belongings quickly and he just took us along with him  to a sideways entrance leading to the Garbha Griha( exact location of installation of beautiful statue of Lord Shrinath Ji. Oh God, now we were in front of the Lord and just as we paid our respect, purohit of that place put down the curtains and closed that door also. What shall you say now? sheer luck, convincing power of the boy or my gut feeling. Can,t say? But overall feeling as that we were extremely lucky as we had planned to go to Udaipur and not stay there overnight. The boy asked then the amount for parshad. I thought and said O.K bring the parshad for Rs. 21. His answer surprised me that the minimum amount to be spent on parshad was Rs. 101 . Well fine , the option before us was to have the big famous Ladoo for parshad or big Rotis. We wanted him to bring Ladoo finally.It was single Ladoo and prepared from different raw material than normal Ladoos are prepared.

Now we were in the Bazaar bustling with activity. Another feature that we noted was the selling of Bhog laga hua parshad in form of fruit pieces for Rs. 10/ paper plate. We took that also and

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A trip to Mewar – Haldighati

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How one could forget  the deep loyalty of Chetak towards its master when in todays time loyalty is missing amongst the human beings. We were also thrilled to find so many peacocks in that area. It was just beautiful. I had never dreamt of visiting the famous Haldi Ghati battlefield site that also along with my closest kith and kin and that also driving my own car. After a few minutes we were on highway and from there Nathdwara town was about 4 km towards left. The beautiful evening was soon on the verge of merging with the queen of night as it was winters though the time was just about 5.20 p.m. Mausam khushgawar tha,door ghar baar tha , main apni car mein sawar tha aur kuchh hi doori par Srinath ji ka dwar tha. And the song playing in my mind at that time was yaara sili sili birha ki raat ka jalna from the movie Lekin. Lekin kyu….. pata nahin.

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A Road Trip to Enchanting Mukteshwar

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With all the theoretical knowledge collected through blogs, we had few recommended names for our stay. We started having a look on hotels. First and the very pleasing one was MT- Mountain Trail. Ambiance/view here was awesome. After discussing about the tariffs we moved on to other hotels. We were more concerned for a captivating view rather than the tariffs. We went ahead to few more lodges along with PWD Guest house. But, we had already lost our hearts to MT. So we called back the manager and asked him to book 2 rooms for us.

We parked our car near the entrance of Mukteshwar temple and started taking a walk towards the main tourist attraction point “Chauli ki jali”. After putting in few efforts in climbing the rocks we finally reached on the top of the cliff. The cliff gave a splendid panoramic view of snow-white Himalayan ranges. Captured the “Orange- setting Sun”, did some archery. As it was getting late and the temperature started dropping with Sun, instead of going for Rock climbing we opted to just give a pose :)

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