Trekking and Exploring places....

I wanted to go for a Himalaya trek which was in my wishlist and I happened to miss one of the most exciting trek (Roopkund trek) happening this week just because I had office work and could not effort to go back on vacation just after a short one L.

I was thinking on

Why is it that trekking makes me go mad….

The thought of a trek itself gives me that everlasting energy boost…

What makes me take paths which are unexplored…..

And this is what I thought;

In our busy day to day life somewhere we have forgotten about what sharing and caring is all about. We are so involved in our lives and work that we do not have time for ourselves too and are always stressed out… But my personal de-stress mantra of life is Trekking and exploring places…

Though it took me time to realize this passion….but this passion has taken me to many places which I always wanted to and many more to come in future.

I believe Trekking helps individuals to develop friendships of a lifetime. One gets to be closer to nature and understand it in a better manner. It is a way you can explore the mountains, hills, waterfalls, wildlife, butterflies, Orchids and birds, which are diversified and fascinating to watch.

It is also a learning process, as nature keeps changing, one has to learn to adapt and follow the rules of nature. Just being in the lap of nature makes me feel energized.

One learns to share, be concerned about others and to be one with nature. The vision of a person changes and he or she is capable of facing any challenges that he/she may encounter in life…

It is really adventurous trekking in areas where there are no people living around and find your own path… as Rosalia de Castro says “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I am going is what inspires me to travel it.”

This has definitely changed me and helped me become a better person and I look forward to many such learning’s and wonderful experiences J.

Journey to remember….

             It was this very day last year I shifted to Bangalore, carrying along all those memorable childhood memories of Pune. Brought up entirely in Pune, I never felt I would be part of Bangalore, though I always felt like being part of some different city away from Pune just to be independent, explore myself J. And then due to some personal reason i had to shift to Bangalore (to be honest I was not in a state of mind of shifting ). There was something holding me back in Pune, probably the hesitation, fear of going away from your comfort zone, thoughts of adjusting in a new city, make new friends, new colleagues, etc and lot many things made it tougher. My mind was filled with lot many thoughts and it was really hard time for me to leave Pune.

I still remember the moment when all the good memories just flashed in front of me and my eyes filled with tears as I left Pune :(….

            Can’t forget the lovely pizza farewell party organized by my Pune colleagues on the last day at office and all talking about their Blore experiences J. Then those dinners and lunches with close friends few days before I left for blore, all trying to convince me to stay back, I feel so lucky to have such good, loving friends around and then thoughts came in….Why, why am i going away….

As I was less burdened with all these, there my school friends made it really difficult after that Village Roof top evening and ice-cream party :P, the most adorable, hearty, warm farewell J.... Time really flew off, I just feel as if it just happened few days ago.

As I came to Bangalore I said this to myself “Accept the change, learn to enjoy it, keep your lovely past in your memories, but never let it ruin the present. “ In this 1 year, I have seen a lot of changes in me (definitely good changes), both professionally and personally and I must say the credit goes to the lovely city, lovely people I have around me.

Though it was only location change for me professionally, the team I was part of now TSD Begaluru as we call it J was totally new to me, I was meeting them all for first time and felt as if I had joined a new company :P. Definitely took me some time to adjust, but was not possible without all the support, warm welcome they offered and making me feel part of the family….Thank you team!! J

Overall to summarize…

Bangalore has taught me to live life at its best,

Overcome all obstacles bravely and not to fall prey to it,

Make mistakes, but learn from it, move ahead and learn to keep your calm,

Learn and realize that there is lots to learn and share, just don’t stop yourself,

Explore and realize what you really feel happy doing….

So what I believe is that having the right attitude, right people around you and right place is all that makes your life happier.  Just live your present, no matter wherever you are….make sure you enjoy every bit of the moment you live J

As I look back to the journey last year, I can say it has been a journey to remember for lifetime and both Pune and Banglore hold a special place in my heart :D

Girl Geek Dinner 2012

This year Yahoo did not limit the event only to networking or discussion between the Women entrepreneur panelist, they had also organized a Web app development workshop for all the girl geeks :) at Vivanta, By Taj.

I registered myself for the workshop. All the necessary software was provided to us in a pendrive which made it easier for setting up the environment. It was an amazing coding along with a huge bunch of geeky girls in the room. It was presented by;

Sudar Muthu, Research Engineer, Yahoo! Labs and

Pradeep BV, Frontend Engineer, Media Experiences, Yahoo!

Learnt about Node.js and Express framework, a Web development framework. Not going much into the technicality, let me summarize it as;

•   Node.js is a javascript program environment used for creating highly scalable network applications. It uses a non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight, fast and efficient built on top of Google’s V8 Javascript engine.
• Express is a light-weight web development framework based on MVC architecture. You could start creating your project just with a single command ‘express projname '. It would create project structure with all the needed files.

In order to start developing, you would need to install Node.js and install Express using npm (npm is a package manager for Node.js that is run through the command line and manages dependencies for an application. It is the predominant package manager for Node.js.)

It would be much interesting if you could do some hands on as we did in the session.

Some links you can refer;

http://nodejs.org/, http://expressjs.com/guide.html

Source Codes of a simple App http://square-thing-app.herokuapp.com/green can be referred at;

https://github.com/ericf/square-thing-app

It’s a pleasure learning about new technologies and trying it out and so was this :).

At 6pm there was a networking session organized called “Speed Networking”. This is where you are supposed to introduce yourself and learn about the opposite person in just 3 mins. My takeaways from this session;

• Speak clearly and confidently and make an eye contact during your interaction.
• Use some impressive keywords when you introduce yourself such that the opposite person would remember you easily.
• You could use some humorous words in your introduction too to make a mark …only if you can (don’t mess it up :P)
•  Try describing your work life and personal life that defines you in just few minutes, never brag too much.
• Learn to be a good listener and remember the person you met, it’s really tough but very essential during networking.

It was then followed by a Panel Discussion on "Starting & Succeeding as a woman entrepreneur”

               Moderator: Bala Girisaballa, Director, YEN, Yahoo!

               Panelists  : Apala Lahiri Chavan - Chief Oracle and Innovator, Human Factors International
                                 Jaya Jha – Founder, Pothi.com
                                 Valerie Rozycki Wagoner - Founder & CEO, ZipDial
                                 Jessie Paul - CEO, Paul Writer

It was a pleasure listening to their entire journey and learning, I can definitely say that there’s struggle involved behind every successful life, nothing comes an easy way :).

Some keynotes from this session;

• Plan your career, it’s never late.
•  Entrepreneurs should have a clear exit strategy.
•  Follow your heart, believe in yourself and be confident.
• You need to sacrifice all the luxury and make sure you don’t fall into the trap (money earning trap, family burden traps, etc)
• You need to have the conviction. Unless you are not convinced you won’t be able to drive yourself ahead. Once you are convinced, stay to it.
• You shall never get answers to all the questions, take advices from experts or risk it out and learn it hard way.
• Unless you do not have any experience it’s tough to get into any startup. It’s good at times to have Big companies names on your resume.
• Make mistakes (not repetitive) but learn from your failures.
• Appreciate people around you for all that you are now. For girls it very important you get a partner and family who would support you throughout (Great to have a salaried spouse as all agreed :P :))

Things that make these people successful in things they are doing;

•  They enjoy what they do.
• When you think of any startup, make sure you are passionate about it, you are best at it and the profitability in that.
• Valerie believes that among idea, money and people, it’s important you have the right people with you who would come up with great, innovative ideas and help you get the necessary investment for your idea.
• Trust people and build the trust when in business.
• Learn to listen and do ask for advices from experts, well-wishers.
•  At the end Apala spoke about 3 things that has made her successful and I reciprocate to it too;

       ·         Creativity- Enjoy stuff you do and be creative

       ·         Courage- Have the courage to face all downsides and keep telling yourself “This too shall pass”

       ·         Balance- Be calm, patient, fair and objective. You can never lose your temper or become too emotional

It’s always been an inspirational event as always, Thanks to Yahoo!, the entire panelist and the geeky girls who made this a success :).

Good Wishes to all ladies out there who wish to become an entrepreneur and lead the path! Cheers! :D

Kerala Trip

It was a long weekend and wanted to spend a peaceful time away from work, internet, cell phone explore a new place, new culture and people. I have been to all south places except Kerala, the smallest state in South India known for its unique culture and landscape.

So our research began and we decided upon Cochin (Huge harbor/Port), Alleppy (Known for boat houses) and Munnar (beautiful hill station).

Munnar which is famous for Tea plantations and Coir products has a beautiful landscape of Tea estates everywhereJ. Munnar (some 130kms away from Cochin) is in the Kannan Devan Hills covered with clouds throughout and very cool.

Places to visit in and around Munnar;

Ø  Madupetty Dam

Ø  Tea Garden and Blossom Park

Ø  Echo point

Ø  Film shooting point

Ø  Kundaly Lake

Ø  Beautiful Top Station View point

Ø  Tata Tea Museum

Ø  Rajamalai  

Ø  Luckom Water Falls

Along the Thekkady direction there are many places to visit, but we didn’t get time for thatL.

Alleppy (Alapuzha) is a small city some 60kms away from Cochin is known as “Venice of east” and famous for backwaters, lovely boat houses and beaches.

Alapuzha beach gives a wonderful view of the Arabian Sea and you cannot miss the sunset view here, awesome place to spend your evening with friends and family.

If you wanna spend a day all alone with yourself or looking for family outing a day away from home or have a huge friends gang looking for a rocking dayout, Boat house is a place must visitJ. It was great watching the small villages on the way, the localites and the way they would transport between these villages in their smaller boats. Lovely cute houses all surrounded by banana, coconut and mango trees. It’s a bliss looking at them and you wish to spend a day in such amazing environment. You can see that every house there owns a boat as we own a vehicle here in citiesJ. Food at boat houses is yum! It would be a treat for Non-vegetarians, but vegetarians need not worry, the food would include all types of vegetables, very yum and healthy. The entire experience was like in a heaven.

There are varieties of Boat houses, single room, double room, with mini balcony. All that you can imagine a house should have you will find it in Boat houses, but yeah the rates vary accordingly: P

Cochin is a major port city also known as Ernakulam is famous for Fort Kochi.

Architecture of Fort Kochi is of British era kind, it’s famous for churches, and majorly known for fishing. I learned a unique way of fishing here. It’s simply awesome and you can buy fresh fishes then and thereJ. Our trip ended with shopping banana chips, keralite sweets in Cochin City.

How can I end my blogpost without mentioning the beautiful lovely kerala people? People here are very simple, honest and helpful. Malayalam language is very difficult to understand, the only word I learnt is “Chari” (similar to sari in kannada) J. Busses in kerala are different and very accessible from anywhere. Overall, lifestyle here is very simple and sober. My entire experience was really great and memorable.

Kerala thank you for your humble hospitality, yum food, scenic landscape and love J. I would love to visit it again and again :D

Love you Kerala!!

Do you realize the importance of…..

You never realize the importance of things you have unless you come across situations which make you feel so lucky....

Just a few days ago, I realized the importance of eyes and light in our life....
When i went to the basement parking to return back home, there was absolutely no light there & it was a dark place, could not see anything infront of me, and was almost blind.... I had to find my vehicle in that darkness, for a moment felt damn scary :(
I lived few moments in blindness and realized how lucky i am to have eyes and getting to experience such beautiful life :)

Another incident where dad and mom just escaped a major car accident and that too because of my new car learner uncle, this news shook me completely and felt for a moment that I lost them and went into a chain of all possible horrible thoughts…. L. That was time when they too realized that life can be short or long for you, you need to live the present completely and enjoy every moment….J

These 2 incidents made me think about all possible things that we are lucky about and don’t realize its importance;

You don’t realize the importance of;

Eyes unless you go blind or caught in a situation where you live a life of a blind,

Legs and hands unless you fracture it and you then have to depend on others for support,

Freedom you enjoy unless you get into a jail kind place and have restrictions on every possible thing,

Speech unless you meet dumb people and interact with them,

Water unless you go to some desert area and it costs you more than what petrol cost,

Food you eat unless you go to some forest and you have live without food for days,

Hard earned money unless you stop earning and have to live life like a miser,

Your best buddy dad unless he is away and you cannot reach him when you truly need him,

Caring angel in life your mom unless you tend to sacrifice things which she did all her life for your happiness,

People who love you and always around unless they happen to suddenly disappear from your life,

Best buddies of your life unless you are in your bad days and they are the only once who trust you and know your worth,

All worthy things around us unless they are taken away,

Time unless you fall short of few seconds to complete a task

And your beautiful life unless you escape some major accident or witness a closed person’s death,

The list is countless, we just need to be courteous enough to recognize them and be thankful to god for your beautiful life he has gifted you.

I have realized many important things in my life and continue to Live the present to the fullest and thank god for such a beautiful life J

Life is happiness,

Life is giving joy,

Life is freedom

Life is a creation

Just live your life like a dream and enjoy it J

Sharing my Learnings….

Blogging after a long time....just wanted to share things i learnt since the past few weeks....

• Never underestimate your work. May be, the work might not be a routine and not what you wanted it to be, but try looking for the positives in doing it. I believe worrying about the work prospects or lack of interest in the work will definitely not be fruitful for both the business and to you personally. Just take it as a new task and accomplish it by giving your best to it.
• Not all work would reward you, but yes look at the things you got to learn during its execution. When there is always some learning involved in any work, that work cannot be worthless.
• Never hesitate to ask for help when you are in need or when you are stuck. There is a saying “You can get even God when you ask for it.” After asking many people for help, there will be one angel who would be ready to do so and don’t forget to appreciate the help and Thank your Angel!
• Asking for help does not mean you completely leave it to that person to complete the task. You ought to have the approach of learning stuffs and willingness to do it yourself and make mistakes if needed to learn….:)
• Always be patient and ever lose hope and never give up….. You might be just very close to the destination, but your lack of hope might not let you reach there.

Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles; it takes away today’s Peace. Don’t worry, the fog will lift someday. When it gets darkest the stars come out…J

• Copying this from my sister’s blog post, since I too believe in it….”Our lives are dropped, crumpled and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special, don’t ever forget it!!” Never worry about the way others rate or value you, it is you who needs to value yourself for others to value you.
• Change is the only constant thing in life….So if things are going well, enjoy it, they will not last forever. If it’s going wrong don’t worry, they can’t long either…

When it’s good then it’s good, it’s so good till it goes bad…..:P

And finally something which my mom says….”Take time out and enjoy every moment of your life, don’t leave things for the end, you can enjoy when you are young. Live the present…”

Torna Trek

I used to hear our office trek group talking about their trek experiences and always wished to be part of it and have an adventurous trek. Thanks to Kishor (one of the initiators of the trek group) who invited me for the Torna trek. I was in for it, the moment he invited me….:) I was the only girl from the group going for the trek and there were never any second thoughts over whether to miss it.

TORNA was the first fort conquered by Shivaji Maharaj and he put the garland (Called Toran in Marathi) of his first victory on this fort and therefore the name –TORNA. TORNA is also called prachandgadh because of it vastness. I had heard a lot about Tornal, but I never imagined what I was to experience, unless I saw it.

We were a group of 13 people (3 kids and 10 adults). We left Pune at 7.15am on 10^th July in 2 cars and it took us 1.5 hrs to reach the base of Torna. We reached Velhe village which is at around 50km from Pune at around 9am. As we reached near the village, the Sahyadri mountains covered with a blanket of green trees gave a beautiful view. One the major reasons you should go for treks in the monsoons is to have a glance of beautiful landscape.

The place was not new to the group since this was the 3^rd year they were coming here, so Ranjit was always in front guiding the group and all we enthusiasts followed him.

Torna is about 4500 ft height, difficulty level is medium, but there are two rock patches on the way up, a little slippery, not bad during ascending, but the descend would really prove tougher on them, but if you are adventurous, you would enjoy it. I was lucky, I didn’t have to carry any sack, courtesy to Gaurav, who carried it. All these photographs are also his piece of creativity….. :)

When you are at the bottom of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain tip/peak, it’s covered with fog and all you feel like is just reach the top and have a closer look at it. The initial part of the trek was walking through the mountain; just see the wonderful waterfalls flowing from a couple of places. As we reached mid the journey, we reached 2 places, which was a flat area which was very windy and it could almost fly you off. I called this as wind therapy area, if you simply stand at one place, opposite the wind, you would get a good body massage by the wind…:-). There was another such place where we experienced windy rains; the rain drops hit your face as if someone targeted you with sharp spears. It was horrifying, but was fun. What we observed was that as you enter the foggy area, it is like you are entering the rainy region and its rains continuously there, something that we really enjoyed.

Then came two very scary steeps (rocky patch as they say), almost breathtaking, but it was safer due to the railing on 1 side. But once you cross this, there comes the most relieving and fun part, the Awesome “Waterfalls”. I don’t know from which height did the water flew, but the water was damn pure and very cold. The place was heaven and if you stand below the falls, you get a good water therapy (that is what I call it as). All your body pain would vanish off and you feel relaxed.

We just didn’t feel like leaving the place, it was awesome and as you stand by the mountain side, you cannot see the base or adjoining mountains, it was that foggy, you actually could not see what was a few fts away. We finally left the waterfalls and started ascending again. In another half an hr, we reached the top. It was 12.30pm; we had our lunch in a temple and tea at some ‘tapri’ just to get some warmth and energy to our bodies.

After having lunch, I was feeling very cold, I was literally shivering and was not feeling well……I got a little scared, didn’t knew if I would reach the base….:P From there we went to Zunjar Machi point, that point was entirely covered by fog, the view was as if there was a blanket of white sky behind us, amazing moment….

2.30pm: Now, was the time to start descending and it was raining heavily. It’s always risky climbing down and that too in the rains….and I made sure I don’t skid, but I ended up skidding twice in the muddy area….:). I should say, there is no fun without skidding, yes only if you don’t hurt yourself badly….:D

As we climbed down, the number of waterfalls had doubled and we could see lot many falls, thanks to the rains, it was a wonderful view. The whole experience was enthralling. When I see such places, I feel bad for those who crib about trekking and wanna tell them what really they are missing. Well, I know I am fortunate of them all.

We reached the base at 4.30pm, played for a while in the smaller falls and then got ready for our journey back to Pune…:( Yes, I was very tired and just felt sleepy and wanted to get back home, but I did feel bad leaving the place and the only thing I said myself was, “Torna is and will always be in my memories. I will not be able to express my experience here, but it shall be always with me until I die…. :-)”