Coming of age

Very pleased to see India come out in full strength and get 6 medals in the Olympics.

Lots of positives. Strengthened the belief that in shooting, India is becoming a rival to reckon with. Reinforced the belief of strength in wrestling [good job Yogeshwar!. Ofcourse Sushil too], a few glaring errors in refreeing in boxing but nevertheless a medal. A surprise in badminton [honestly, I didnt expect that]

Hockey was disappointing in the sense they should have finished 6/7... not 12.

Joydeep Karmakar will take a lot of positives from this. Too bad to miss it by a small bit - but all this helps in the future competitions. He should / will take heart from this.

Surprisingly, we found 2 final entries in discus too... track and athletics - something that India has failed to do for a very long time. Brilliant there too.

Tennis was poor but it was sort of expected too [atleast I thought it wasnt a medal chance]. In badminton, P Kashyap should take a lot of confidence and positive attitude from this olympics.

Overall, an outstanding Olympic and they did surpass my personal expectation [my personal belief was this: "5 medals in 2012 and they have come of age"]. Simple fantastic.

Now for more focus and target 10+ medals in Rio. Rio, here we come.

Boucher Retires

What a guy. what a man. He is truly one of the greats of the game to ever have graced the cricket field.


"The symmetry of the numbers, too, would have intrigued those who believe in planetary alignment. The third Test of the series would have been his 150th and last, at the home of cricket. But now there will always be something slightly Bradmanesque about his record international haul of 999 international dismissals."


Link here

End of days for Gupta?

Hope he gets his 110 years in prison.

"From 3:13pm to 3:53pm on September 23, 2008, Gupta participated in a Goldman board meeting conducted over a conference call from his office at McKinsey & Co., where he had once served as CEO, Tarlowe explained.  Within seconds of ending the board meeting, Gupta called Rajaratnam’s direct line at Galleon, the prosecutor went on, which was available to a select few people.  Immediately after their call ended at 3:56pm, Rajaratnam ordered one of his traders to purchase 100,000 shares of Goldman.  A minute later, he ordered a more senior trader at Galleon to purchase an additional 250,000 shares – the combined purchases were worth about $43 million.  No one else other than Gupta called Rajartnam’s direct line during the last ten minutes of trading on that day, Tarlowe added.  And the size of the trade went well beyond Galleon’s trading parameters.  News of Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in Goldman became public well after trading closed on that day"


Link here

Bylakuppe, Dubare, Honey valley : Madikeri bike trip

Friend and I planned to do a 3-day trip to Madikkeri by bike and had a decent time being there.

Started early and skipped traffic in most of the places and reached Bylakuppe [through the Hunsur-Periyapatna route] by 12.00 PM. This was the first time I was visiting the monastery in Bylakuppe and there was a nice feel to the Tibetan settlement present there and also their golden monastery.

Imposing 60-foot idols of Bodisatva, Buddha and Amutayus invite the people in the inner sanctum of the monastery.

Buddha and Amitayus

Buddha @ Bylakuppe

We were just in time to view the monks during the prayer time

Long line of monks reciting their prayers

Next stop was Dubare where there was not much of water - so we could wade through knee deep water to the other side of the river bank where the elephants are found. Dubare seems like a nice place to relax and spend time in if one isnt in a hurry. The Jungle lodges there provide decent rooms at slightly inflated prices but its well worth one's while to try it sometime.

The route from Dubare to Madikkeri is quite scenic and is a fair bit of a technical challenge too. Not very steep but long meandering roads with winding turns interspersed with a hairpin here and there makes it a nice route to ride / drive in. Add the coffee plantations on one side and the smell of the coffee flowers, its a double delight and all the more reason why one should take it slow and take all the smell and the scene in while riding. We halted in Madikkeri for the night.

Personal advice: skip Abbi falls - its commercial and not that great. Raja's seat is perched atop the park and is just about OK. The park also has a musical fountain bewtween 6.30-7.00 PM almost all days - we went late but from I saw, it was quite good for the last few mins that I was able to view.

We planned to go to Honey valley the next day - though I have been there many times earlier, each individual visit to Honey valley is an unique experience by itself and I am getting quite fond of the place. Excellent views and ability to have long walks really impress me about this place vis-avis most other homestays where the walks end in 15 mins.

View from some 3.5-4 kms away from Honey valley towards Tadiandamol ridge walk route

Note: From Madikkeri - take the route to Mangalore to go to Honeyvalley. Madikkeri->Kakkabe->Kabbinakad. Honey valley is about 4 kms from Kabbinakad. One can park their car in the parking lot and then either walk up or ask for the jeep [call earlier to arrange for the same].

We came back to Blr through the Kabbinakad->Virajpet->Gonikoppa->Hunsur and back. The route from Madikkeri-> Hunsur through Virajpet and Gonikoppa is quite bad when compared to the route from Hunsur->Madikkeri through periyapatna. [Just somewhere beyond Hunsur there is a bifurcation where the left takes one to Virajpet and the right goes to Madikkeri through Periyapatna]

All in all, a decent trip and lots of good memories.

If you are going through hell, keep going

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” He followed that with another speech shortly thereafter: “. . . we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”


Link here