Delhi, A Trip and a New Job

So, here I find myself finally, back in the hometown of Delhi ... Delhi NCR to be more correct as the office is located in Noida.

Moving to Delhi was a different experience. I usually associated Delhi with pollution and bad traffic. It still has that, but the pollution seems to be lesser than what would be there in Pune in peak hours. The amount of vehicles on the road is mind boggling !

My first impression of Delhi was ... "hmm.. pleasant weather" , especially coming from the sweltering heat of Pune. The second one was "mmm. Good Food ! " !!

Trip to Dehradun

I still had a few days left in hand before joining the Job, so I decided on a quick journey home to Dehradun. This time I decided to go in the car, rather than in the train as everyone was suggested.

The route is not enjoyable for a drive. I think that the next time onwards I will be going by Train. Most of the road is a single land with mad truck drivers. Many times I had to slow down and almost get off to the road shoulder to avoid trucker/busses overtaking other vehicles.

A stop on the way.

But once you reach roorkie, the road becomes good. It is fun to drive through ! Then , once you get to UttaraKhand , the roads become even better ! The last few kms are through the Shivalik ranges and skirt the outside of the Rajaji National Park - absolutely fun !

Lapwings in the field behind our house

Mom and Dad with the Car

Roads just out of Dehradun - Paradise !

I just stayed a day in Dehradun, and then headed back. This time I took the canal route. This is a seldom used road, so the traffic is quite less, and it runs alogside the ganga canal from Haridwar to MuradNagar so you basically cut out all the Heavy Vehicle traffic. However, when I was doing the drive, many parts of the road were in bad condition, and at many places, the construction of the brick railings were in progress. Furthermore, at many points this road crosses other roads - basically bridges across the canal, and just before and after these junctions, there are unmarked bumps - which you have to be careful about. Apart from these irritations, this is quite a cool route.

The Canal Road

One97

On 6th I joined a new company. The company is in the mobile VAS ( Value Added Services) space. I was surprised to see around 15 people joining with me ! In the days of economic slowdown, the VAS industry is doing quite good ! I also had this feeling that we Indians don't have a Product mentatlity , as most of the software we use is from companies from elsewhere around the world - but this company proved me wrong. Many of the VAS products are being used by the big operators in India ( Airtel, Idea , etc ). The work seems to be quite exciting ! !

The office space is also designed in a very open manner. The managers share the same space as all the developers , and the cube (if it can be called that) height is half - so you can see from one end of the floor to the other. Advantages and Disadvantages abound - as you can easily see the length and breadth of the floor, but at the same time, it becomes noisy. Now, it is quite the same as what Wipro was, but I have been spoilt in the last few years of working in individual cubes - so that it feels quite noisy to me ! However, its a thing about getting used to , and I think that in a few weeks, i will not even be realising the noise ( the body is an amazing machine!)

What I really liked in the first few days of work is that there is a lot of Enery and Enthusiasm in the people here. There are hardly any whiteboards here, so the glass walls that are the walls for the few discussion rooms are used for writing. Pretty cool usage if you ask me . Also, there is no hard and fast rule of what to use and what not to use - e.g. I am using Linux as my standard OS on my laptop and a few other people are using Macs etc. Nice.

Now, for the new few weeks my concentration is going to be on work and finding a house. So forgive me if I do not update here more often !

Night stay at Murud

Last weekend ended up in Murud by chance. The initial plan was to go to Alibag, spend the evening there and be back the next day. This time by car, as S and another friend couple were going to join us.

Left Pune around 2pm and headed out via the old NH4. I wanted to take the khapoli exit after a stop at the hotel RK (Ram Krishna) in lonavala. However, being a sat afternoon, Lonavala was choc a block, and so we decided to move on. Exited at khapoli , went to Pen and crossed over to the road to Alibag. Reached there around 5pm - and oh boy - what a disappointment it was ! The small beach was overflowing with weekenders. Tried to find a hotel - and the best over there did not meet with the ladies approval.

A lunch break later ( it was late for lunch, but still too heavy for being called a snack !), we decided to head out towards Murud and try to find a place. The reasoning was that even if we did not find a good place, we can drive through the night and be back in Pune.

Sunset on the way

The first stop was at Prakruti Beach Resort - which strangely was in a direction opposite from the beach. Next to it was also Sea Touch hotel - again without the sea in sight. The guard at Prakruti disallowed us entry as we did not have a booking ! Hmm..

Kept heading towards Murud and at Murud came to the Golden Swan Resort. It was a neat place - which was really next to the beach ! Luckily for us , there were a couple of rooms available, which after some barganing we got for 2800 per room. Steep price but good rooms. A/C , Tv, the works. Food not included.

Dropping our luggage in the room we had dinner (it was already around 9pm by this time ) and headed out to the beach, where we stayed chatting till midnight. There is something about being out there on the beach in the dark , listening to the sound of the ocean, which is really soothing ! Pitch dark, with a half moon. That did not deter me, and i started experimenting with taking night shots (and cursed myself for not getting my tripod along !). The results are as below.

Moonlit sea

Also tried a shot of the moon at the max 12x zoom afforded by the S5 IS. And the result is something which is on my desktop now !

Cresent Moon

We all turned in at 1am with plan to get up early morning and take pics of the sunrise ( not matter that we were west facing, and the sunrise wont be seen). Alarms set, we dropped off to sleep...
... and promptly turned off the alarm as soon as the cellphones buzzed.

ah well - thats what a holiday is for anyways !

Went into the sea and frolicked there a bit. None of us knew swimming, but we had a great time! No pics, as the camera is not waterproof ! Canon does come out with water proof casings, but I did not have one.

Returned around 10 to the cottages. We had to vacate by 10am actually as the resort was to be shut down for 2-3 days for pest control. Breakfast was quite pathetic. This place has buffet for meals, and by the time we went for breakfast, most of the things had finished off - and still they wanted to charge 150 bucks per plate. Finally after a bit of convincing got them convinced to charge per item basis.

Quack ?

We did plan to go to Janjira, but the plan was dropped as my friend's wife was not feeling well. The way back was almost the same , except at khapoli i took the expressway to pune. We got back quite quickly - took around 4 hours - with a break for lunch on the highway cafe (not good food, but no other option on the expressway).

I would recommend the resort for anyone going to stay. Don't eat there - try other places around if you can.

Tata 'nano' for 1 Lakh

Tata recently launched their 1 Lack car at the auto expo being held in Delhi. Following pic from rediff :



Me, i think its a great achivement. But at the same time I can't help being pessimistic. Why so ?? Read on...

So, lets see who can afford the car now. This is gonna come in the segment of people who typically own the low cc bikes - splendors, xcd etc. Now, these guys have no traffic sense whatsoever. They ride around weaving along on the road, stop where they feel like. So, now these guys are gonna ride around, feeling all proud to own a 4-wheeler. Whereas you could have a bike going around the city, you fill up the space or 2-3 bikes with a car. Traffic Mayhem on the cards !

grumble grumble, when will they release some good bikes in the 400cc range...


Specs :

Engine Capacity : 624cc
Fuel : Petrol
Power : 33bhp
Fuel Capacity : 30ltr
Shift : Manual, 4 gear
Mileage : 23kmpl
Cost : 1 Lakh ex shoroom ( standard variant - non AC version)

Bidar - Revisted

After a lot of dilly dallying, falling sick with vertigo, umpteen postponements, we finally went to Bidar.

This was my 2nd time to this holy place, but first time for Soniya. This time we went by lightning, with a couple of more friends - Manav and his wife Nidhi.

Since the distance was just 120kms (confirmed by my last blog), we decided to take it easy. We were to leave by 8am, and only go to the gurudwara. The route out of hyd was ok. The main difference I see between a bike and a car are :

• I have to wait patiently behind other cars/trucks/tractors, sing a song etc, as I don't have much chance of overtaking on a single lane highway.
  
• There is a breed of drivers more dangerous than the 3 wheelers in the city. These are the white indica cab drivers.
  
• The second most dangerous drivers are uncles in Maruti 800s.
  
• On a bike, you dont even realise the above as there are too many big gaps to overtake on.
• You can listen to songs, but if you have been driving for long, the songs become stale. You crave for switching them off, but when you switch it off, it becomes boring and sleepy.
  
• The day which is perfect for biking is one in which you switch on the AC in the car.
  
• You can eat and drink while driving.
  
• People usually see you.
  

Our first stop was to be at the Reliance A1 plaza, but it was closed. I don't know whats with the reliance and AP, but all the plazas are closed it seems. So, we went on further and came across an AP tourism stop point, where we had tea and coffee. The only thing they had on sale was some puris - nothing else. Wonders why the govt even bothers to open up such places.

The turn off to Bidar is at Zahirabad. Last time the road from here onwards was not very good. However, this time round the road had been metalled up and was pretty good to zip on. My wife drove here and was just enjoying the drive.

At Bidar the gurudwara is on the main road. Just keep following the road and you come across an arch on the right side which has something written in Gurumukhi. Cant miss it. Turn in from there and a short descent later we were at the gurudwara. Being a weekday , it was quite empty.

Darshan at the Gurudwara

We spent some time at the darshan, and soaking up the atmosphere. There is something wierd about the atmosphere. The sikhs there sing the holy songs - which at first sound quite jarring, but if you just sit there inside the gurudwara, a feeling of peace steals over you, and you start enjoying the songs , which just a while back were getting to you.

The gurudwara has a 24 hour langar (food for the faithfuls) which ate. Just prior to leaving the gurudwara, we went to see the spring adjacent to the gurudwara. Legend has it that when Guru Nanak had visited Bidar, the area was under a severe doubt. He stuck his sword in at the ground , and a fresh water spring came out of the hole. This spring is that one. We took a sip each of the crystal clear water, and it tasted really good. People were filling up bottles with the water to take back home.

The fresh water spring

On the way back we stopped at a Bharat Petroleum Ghar. I think they are starting on a similar concpet to Reliance A1. This one though was operational, and the food was good. I would recommend it to people who are travelling on this route and want to stop for some food.

BP Ghar

The way back was uneventful except getting frustrated with the traffic and the road. I remember this road being the same for god knows how many years. On both sides the road widenning has started, and then forgotten. Took the turn at BHEL to avoid further traffic buildup and crused home via gachibowli, avoiding the people sauntering across the road - jumping in your path as soon as you draw level with them.

I enjoy touring, but I dont like coming back to the city!

Verna kya ?

Finally I got caged !

Bought a car yesterday. Its the Verna Diesel from Hyundai.



ENGINE & TRANSMISSION

• Technology : CRDi with Variable Geometry Turbocharger
• Valve & Cam arrangement : 16V - DOHC
• Displacement (cc) : 1493
• Max. Power (ps/rpm ): 110 / 4000
• Max. Torque (kgm/rpm) : 24 /1900 ~ 2750
• Transmission : 5 Speed Manual

STEERING

• Type : Power assisted Rack & Pinion
• Minimum Turning Radius (m) : 5.05

SUSPENSION

• Front Suspension : MacPherson Strut with coil springs and anti roll bar
• Rear Suspension : Coupled torsion beam axle
• Shock Absorbers : Gas type

BRAKES

• Front Brakes : Ventilated Discs
• Rear Brakes : Drum / Disc (ABS)

DIMENSIONS

• Overall LxWxH (mm) : 4310 x 1695 x 1490
• Wheelbase (mm) : 2500
• Ground Clearance (mm) : 170
• Fuel Tank Capacity (L): 45

The best part was when after taking delivery of the car, we rolled into a petrol err diesel pump station, and asked Rs1000/- of diesel to be filled int. That came to be around 30L and almost topped up the tank ! Woot ! ! !