To Warangal - Yet Another Biking Trip

It truly has been a vacation season with an extended weekend not the usual 3 day long, but thanks to those thoughtful IT companies, a 4 day long weekend to allow junta to take a real long holiday break.

The office spaces had been buzzing for over a month planning and re-planning most of the junta’s holiday plans, mine no different. With my Boss already on a Europe tour, all my colleagues spared no ends to plan their trips either to some exuberant locations or the more sober hometowns. I sure was left wondering, with my present home-town being Hyderabad itself.

Nevertheless, it didn’t bar me from deliberating about a short trip. With some pre-commitments getting cancelled just on time, I put my extempore mind onto some work and decided to go ahead for a trip to the Warangal district.

The objectives, though otherwise different, were quite clear. Clock a few miles on my bike and Click as many pictures. It had been quite long since I took my bike out on a long trip and used my lenses to capture non-urban images. When the excursion ended 14 hours after it had begun, my bike had traveled 540 kms and my camera had shot 150 photographs!!!

Read on for a day full of twists & turns & a lot of goof ups. The day, was 25^th December, 2008.

Coming home from office a bit late on the 24^th evening, I had just about enough time to plan my trip. And it included first and foremost loading my MP3 player with good music and then scouring the Wiki & Yahoo Maps. A couple of hours later I was all ready with a “definitive plan” for the next 2 days. I have rarely believed in planning and though very confident about this one, little did I know that to further strengthen my conviction, even this one will go for a complete toss.

For starters, Warangal is a beautiful district and is actually a city composed of 3 towns – Warangal, Kazipet & Hanamkonda. The district has a huge expanse of area under forest cover and houses a few famous wildlife sanctuaries. Dating back to History four centuries back, this region was ruled by the Kakatiyas and one can find glimpses of the Kakatiyan architecture all over the district.

The plan for Day 1 was to hit the highway, NH 202, to reach Hanamkonda by 10:30 and then to proceed to Pembarti, a village 60kms further away and famous for export-quality Brassware to catch a glimpse of the artisans at work. Head back to Hanamkonda by afternoon to visit the 1000 Pillar Temple, Warangal Fort and browse the Triple cities in the evening before putting up at Warangal. On Day 2 get going by 6:30 to visit Ramapaa Temple, (a temple from the age of the Kakatiyas and now in partial ruins, about 65 kms from Warangal) followed by a visit to Palampet Lake, Pakhal Wildlife Sanctuary and then head back to Hyderabad.

Quite incidentally of course, I couldn’t find a better day and a better route for this biking excursion. A light mist and a mild sunny morning made the weather more than perfect and was aptly supplemented by the beautiful, well maintained NH 202 with just light – medium traffic. From whatever chance I got to turn my head around to absorb the landscape enroute, it was just wonderful. Just the right intensity of the sun light and just the perfect angle of the sun rays weaved simple yet enchanting hues of greens, browns and blues. I breezed along quite merrily, gradually being able to hit the 90 km/hr mark. A quick stopover at Bhongir for a breakfast of hot Dosa at a roadside stall turned out to be heavenly, after he presumably prepared a special dosa for someone who all up in biking gear had stopped by his stall for some breakfast!

Later, gobbling up the miles, I reached Hanamkonda right on time and an enquiry later was very much on the next highway to Pembarti, much to my sheer joy of being able to keep up with the plan.

Not for long. After a few wrong turns including a double back of 10 kms, some more enquiries about the village from startled locals and creeping suspicions about my ‘the’ definitive plan I finally managed to reach the small but picturesque village of Pembarti. Just some 20 houses big, this hardly seemed the place I was looking for! After a couple of more enquiries, it turned out that the state of Andhra Pradesh has 2 places that go by the same name!!

Dazed but still enthusiastic after the small little adventure, I headed back to Hanamkonda and decided to advance my plan to visit the 1000 pillar temple and add a few local destinations later. Expecting it to be a tourist monument, it turned out to be quite the opposite. The temple was all decked up with temporary canvas tents and shlokas were recited out of the loud speakers, some big community havan in progress. Being the atheist, I nodded in agreement with myself not to disturb the Lords during the tryst with their devotees.

Out and out dazed this time around, I hard-braked my bike to take stock of the grave situation. Not used to such disasters, in true filmy style, a pair of twins had duped me about their true identities and akin the Vijay of Deewar, I refused to let the cosmos conspire for me any further. A few moments later, I decided to throw the entire definitive plan out of the gear box, and decided to ride upto Ramappa Temple with things to do next left dangling sine die.

Trusting one’s instincts is always advisable as the ride to Ramappa further on the NH 202 turned out to be quite blissful, with very light traffic. I breezed by some beautiful landscape comprising of lakes, farms, orchards, the distant hills and ‘tadi’ bars. I even ventured onto a dusty old track off the highway to witness some upbeat harvesting activities in progress.

Reaching the remotely located Ramappa temple, I quite unexpectedly found a lot of picnickers basking in the gardens adjoining the temple campus. The temple in itself was quite fascinating architecturally and I endeavored hard with patience to capture the architecture ‘sans humans’.

Though most parts lie in ruins, the temple itself is still religiously active with a ‘shivlinga’ situated in the inner sanctum of the temple where one can offer prayers. There’s a beautiful lake just 1 km further up the temple road. Another picnic spot, it also offers a 10 minute boat ride on the lake. There are also some fairly well-maintained cottages on the bank of the lake providing a good option for an overnight stay for Rs.400 per day.

Turning back, I decided to visit the Warangal Fort on my way back to Hyderabad. Yes, I had decided to curtail this into a single day trip. Though a little late to start back to cover the odd 150 kms in the fading sunlight, I decided to still go ahead for some night riding.

But while still in Warangal, the Warangal Fort, as it is called, is almost in ruins. The main spot looks like an AP Tourism garden with architectural pieces arranged in a particular pre-defined fashion. The outer walls and the gates, though, were quite impressive, reminiscent of the strong defenses this fort would have offered to its inhabitants. As the sun set over the western skyline, I bade farewell to this intriguing place to head back home.

With a single short stop at a small town, I managed to hit Hyderabad in pretty good time and in good nick as well. I was very well escorted by the Taveras and Sumos which gave me company as per my convenience and shielded those glaring headlights from the opposite direction.

Quite content with the day’s proceedings, sheer biking pleasure inclusive, I fascinatingly dwelled upon a longish hot shower, a peg of vodka and a sound 10 hours sleep to wake up the next day, with a definitive question on my mind. Where to… Next?

For more photographs, check out this link http://picasaweb.google.co.in/sragdharpatel/WarangalTrip#

Let's Talk Music

Say some may whatever, we are living the Matrix life. Now... now... before anybody starts to get thinking on that... thats not something new I may be saying... Its already been told through the Matrix triology and in various discsussion forums - formal & informal... but what I am referring to is not to that extreme... We are just stuck in a self-created vicious circle of life. And the worst part about it is that we crib, we complain about the absolute thing we are supposed to enjoy - Life!

Well... we do find those moments of joy when we break the monotony... but then why do we not take up what we enjoy doing... I believe we are scared... not sure of what... in the same way as I am right now - confused.

What I wanted to write about is Music... the word that brings smile to my face and am sure to the face of many others. I am writing out this blog to talk about music... and the us in Let's is to encourage people - whomsoever to just type down anything thats even disctinctly related to music... from something as a complex link between the hum of a fan to rhythms to a much simpler opinion about a track, album.

I am going to start by writing about the music of the Bollywood film - Rock On. The prime reason to talk about is was the inspiration from the Rolling Stone India September Issue Cover which featured the cast of the film along with the creators of the first Indian Film Rock album.

The sound in the album was definite rock... the distinct basslines... the well executed usage of symbals... and purely emphatic solo runs on the electric guitar... no fakes. I remember reading somewhere that James Horner used the actual early 20th century instruments to create the authentic feel in the music of Titanic... so it was nice not to hear any Violins (used extensively in Bollywood music) in any of the tracks of Rock On. It was also nice on the part of SEL to not emphasize the usage of synchronized sounds produced by the keyboards - another fave among the Bollywood musicians. But the best part about the whole thing was that the cast actually learnt to play their respective instruments. A refereshing thing to see was the authentic picturization of the songs in the movie... and the reason behind it was that the songs were performed without any breaks with 5 cameras... Since all knew how to play... they just got up on stage and performed the whole song in totality as any band would do... and the 5 cameras made sure the director had plenty of angles to put during the song sequence.

No... I am not promoting the music of Rock On... it is good enough in itself to get genuine appreciation... and that what I may be doing... along with adding some facts I read in Rolling Stone and elsewhere.
But all in all, it was nice to hear an album with all songs that distinctly stood out on their own but the point to ponder is that would an album like this would have done equally well as a non-film album... I realize a lot of good stuff is being written and composed by the lots of talented bands / artists we have in our own country... but just that it doesnt reach the audience in a way it should be... having the Bollywood tag attached sure helps immensely in a country that doesnt want to look beyond film music for entertainment.
And it sure is a positive sign for stagnating XXXXXWood music industry to have new genre of music being added to its reportaire. Maybe thats the best way in the end to promote "non-popular amongst the masses" genres of music like rock, jazz, blues... examples AR Rehman coming out with a Jazz track in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, the heavy metal song in Rock On... maybe its just a language barrier as well... with our majority population being the non-English and most of the good non-film music being made in English. Thats why perhaps band like Euphoria do get a good reception... I remember I went to this Pentagram concert in Hyderabad (for the non-starters, Vishal from the Vishal-Shekhar duo is the lead singer of this pure authentic rock / metal band) and there was someone who shouted out expecting that the band was actually going to belt out Bollywood numbers.

Being part of a rock band with experience playing in front of audiences who do not appreciate English music... (the issue was not that we were playing Rock... but maybe more that we used to play English numbers) I am not going to provide opinions of how all genres of music can be made popular or to just let it be... because frankly... true musicians play what they want to without being concerned about the quantity of the audience... and I will keep listening to all that I want to without being concerned about the quality of the creators of music.

Just a Trial - First Shot at Blogging

Blogging seems to be the "IN" things these days. Left, right, all around I hear people talk about blogging. Though quite aware of the 'verb', I never felt inclined to blog myself until today. So here I am, blogging at a time when ideally I should have done what most people do at this time - sleep (Aha!!).
Sure it is a good way of communicating with people, getting to know people on the web, letting oneself be visible to others, sharing information.
Sometimes I do wonder how information technology has transformed the way this globe works. Forget the more scientific stuff, just the day to day life of an average man has changed drastically. The time about 25 odd years back, when the only means of information used to be the good old morning newspaper and the daily news bulletin that used to be broadcasted once or maybe at most twice a day. Live news was available only from 30-40 odd people that we met in a day.
This age, the morning newspaper has almost become passe, being replaced with portals that publish information as they happen at any time of the day at any place on the globe.
The advent of IT has opened up a whole new world, where the people one can interact with is no longer restricted to one's neighbourhood, rather the whole world has become one small neighbourhood.
The IT has brought us to this stage. The most interesting thing to ponder over is where will it take us next. I know there are a lot many predictions about what IT will do for us in the future. But as always, IT always surpasses one's expectations & predictions.
Maybe by the time somebody reads this, we might already have a new "verb" similar to ones like 'google', 'stumble', 'blog', etc.

Cheers!!!