Took this picture in the evening after sunset while roaming around on the Tarkarli beach.
Category: Travel
Day 59/ 365 – Peacocks at Chincholi Morachi
Last Sunday, we visited a village called Chincholi Morachi. The village is approx. 50 kms away from Pune on Ahmednagar highway. Chincholi means Tamarind trees and Morachi means peacock, thus translating name of the village as Village of Tamarind trees and Peacocks. The drive to the village is very pleasant with rolling hills on the side. I had been here earlier along with Saurav Roy in December last year. As soon as we reached the village, we spotted a peacock but before I could take a picture, the peacock ran away. We then parked ahead on the side of the road and then entered the fields to observe some peacocks. We also ran into a local villager who told us how he feeds the peacocks on the daily basis and they are running away because we are strangers. By this time, we had already spent like 45 mins there. The villager asked us to stay back for some more time and the peacocks would come. However, we decided to make a move and head back to Pune. Overall, we had a good trip.
Day 58/ 365 – Sunset at Khandala
I captured this shot while returning from Khandala on Sunday evening. The sun was setting and the place was crowded with way too many people. I could only find a spot where there two branches in front of me. So I thought.. lets use them as props and tada.. the results are the below two pictures.
Day 56/ 365 – Evening time at Vasai Creek
Everyday I pass through this stretch and feel like taking a picture. The other day I finally parked my bike on the side of the road and took this picture.
Day 54/ 365 – Rose clicked at Manali
Took this picture of a rose just after it stopped raining a few months ago in Manali. Found this picture hidden somewhere in my archives and thought of sharing. Taken at ISO 200, F6.3 and focal length 208 mm.
Day 50/ 365 – Shiva – The God of Duality
I clicked this picture at Panchvati in Nasik. There is a small Shiva temple near Ramkund and it is easy to miss it. Shiva transcends all duality, one image to express this is the ardhanarishvara (“the Lord who is half woman”) As you can see, one half has male features and attributes, and the other half female (thus showing how Shiva transcends one of the most basic divisions among human beings, that of sex).
Day 49/ 365 – Ticketless Travel
The other day I was returning from my MBA classes and completely forgot to punch in my train coupons. Normally I stand in the ticket line on the platform and buy a return ticket, but on this particular weekend I was running late and didn’t want to wait in a line to get the tickets. So I decided to take the train coupons and punch them in. The problem with the train coupons is that you need to punch them in every time you need to travel. So I reached the railway station and used the coupons to travel, but while returning completely forgot all about it. So I traveled in the train, got down at my stop and walked out without ever realizing that I had not purchased the tickets. I only realized the same when I had almost reached home.
I remember, during my college days in India, when I was once caught traveling ticket less in a 1st class compartment. Like yesterday, it was entirely accidental. During my college days, we used to get special discounts for students for the monthly/ quarterly railway pass, which was basically 1/3rd of the original price. I used to travel by 1st class because the crowd was comparatively “better”, the seats were cushioned and it was comparatively cheaper. I had taken a quarterly pass and used to travel on a daily basis. I thought my pass was expiring on a certain date and was traveling keeping in mind that date. However, my railway pass had expired a couple of days earlier and I wasn’t aware about it all. Like usual I was traveling in the train with an expired railway pass and a ticket checker came along to check the ticket. I handed him my expired railway pass and didn’t even look at him considering all was fine. So he asked, “do you have any new pass along with this?” I replied “No”. He told me “This pass is expired and you need to pay the fine.” I was like “Oh oh are you sure?” He said “Yes. Here take a look.” I looked at the pass and saw the pass has indeed expired. So I check my wallet to see how much money I had and there wasn’t much. As a student, I didn’t really have a lot of pocket money and fine for traveling ticket less in a first class compartment is usually very high. The ticket checker told me the fine that I needed to pay and I told him I didn’t have enough money to pay the same. He asked me to get off at the next station and then have the discussion outside. I was like ok.. So the train stops at the next station and me, my friend and the ticket checker get off. I told him I have Rs. Xx and he should just take that money and let me go. He then said that’s not possible and I need to somehow pay the fine. I checked with my friend if he had some extra money and he said he didn’t have enough to pay off the whole fine. I asked the ticket checker to let us go with whatever little money we had. After some amount of haggling, we agreed on the fine and which I was able to pay and was finally let off. Since that time onwards, I normally take a ticket while traveling, to avoid such an experience.
Day 42/ 365 – Some shots at Sula Vineyards
Day 40/ 365 – Nasik Sightseeing – Part II
After our unsuccessful attempt to breach the defenses of the Gangapur dam, we started driving towards the city. While driving towards Gangapur dam, I didn’t recall taking any turns and thus continued driving straight. However, after driving for a few kms, I couldn’t recall seeing some of the landmarks on the road and felt I was lost. Well I was lost – but it turns out we had somehow reached the city and were on the College Road. After driving for a few mins we saw a row of footwear shops and my wife said we need to stop right here and do some shoe shopping. There is something about handbags and shoes which makes my wife absolutely crazy. So we parked in a nearby mall which had one of the narrowest ramps ever and headed out to shop. We shopped for a hour or so and identified some shops with really funny names (Pics below). It was already 2 pm and we were really starving. I was not able to find any good restaurants on the College Road – may be there are some in the by lanes – but on the main road I wasn’t able to find any and we didn’t want to eat fast food. Finally we found a place to eat and finished our lunch and then headed towards Shalimar (Panchvati).
We took an rickshaw from College Road and got down at Shalimar. The best part of exploring any new city is by foot. We wanted to go towards Ganga ghat, Ram Kund, Lakshman Kund etc. and kept asking directions from various people and walked right through the market area. Seeing the market area, my wife once again got into a shopping spree – but thankfully we didn’t end up spending a lot of time there. We finally reached our destination and I was really surprised to see people taking a dip in the dirty Godavari river – all in the name of religion. We saw a lot of people doing puja’s and all. Panchavati has significant religious significance for Hindus with a temple complex on the bend of the Godavari river, which includes Kalaram Temple. It is a pilgrimage site, with the Kumbh Mela, the largest peaceful gathering in the world – involving over 100 million people in 2013, taking place here once every twelve years in rotation with Haridwar, Allahabad, and Ujjain. In Hindu theology, as outlined in the epic Ramayana, Panchavati was the place in the forest of Dandakaranya (Danda Kingdom), where Rama built his home along with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman during their period of exile in the wilderness. Panchavati literally means “a garden of five banyan trees”. These trees are said to have been there during the exile of Lord Rama. However, we couldn’t find the trees. We did ask a couple of people who confirmed their existence somewhere on the other side of the road. But we didn’t really decide to check it out. We also came across vegetable market right there. The best part of Nasik is, the vegetables and grape products are really cheap. Since we had parked our car in a mall on the College Road, we didn’t buy vegetables from this market. However, we did end up buying raisins from there. We spent quite sometime over there and then decided to continue shopping in the main market area. We roamed around the market for some time and then headed back towards College Road to pick up the car.
It was around 530pm by the time we picked up the car. We then decided to make an impromptu trip to Deolali. Apparently, I had heard a lot of good things about this place and decided to explore the place. The drive to Deolali was full of traffic and we reached the place after almost an hour of driving. As soon as you enter Deolali, you are surrounded by sanatoriums on both sides of the street. We kept driving further ahead in the anticipation of finding some good looking points etc. However, it had gotten dark by then and there was no point in going any further. We then decided to go check out the Levitt market as we had heard a lot about this place. Levitt market is a place where you can find branded clothes at reasonable prices. However, what we saw was very different to what we had read. The market is relatively small and most of the shop keepers have the same stuff and the prices are relatively high too. We also explored a local military shop and Empire bakery. We got cakes, wine biscuits etc from the bakery and it is good. We then decided to head back to Nasik and as usual got lost in the between. Deolali, by the way, also has a large presence of Indian Air Force military station and by mistake we entered the military area. We asked someone inside who gave us directions which required us to go out through the main gate which was barricaded – so while coming out of the gate – the soldier started calling me shahab (Sir) and gave us a smile. I think he thought that we were someone from Air Force and not civilians. For a moment I was very surprised and then realized that he probably would have got confused with someone else. We quickly made our way out and then found the road and returned super exhausted to Nasik. Overall it was a good day spent.
Day 39/ 365 – Nasik sightseeing Part I
After our wonderful day at Sula Vineyards, the next day we decided to cover some of the religious places for which Nasik is famous for. Unlike the previous day, we decided to head out early today since it was a Saturday and we knew the temples could get crowded. We left around 8am in the morning to Trimbakeshwar Shiva temple – which is also one of the 12 Jyotrilingas. You can read about details here. The drive to Trimbakeshwar is good and the roads are nice. Since we had a relatively early morning start, the weather outside was also cool and I enjoyed driving on that road. The temple is around 30 kms from where we were staying and it took us approx. 45 mins to reach the place. You are allowed to park in one of the streets inside the temple complex. There is also a parking area which is some distance away from the temple – but is walk able. We decided to park inside the temple complex. On reaching the temple, we were informed that you cannot take camera’s and mobile phones inside and taking pictures of the temple is not allowed. The temple is really beautiful with intricate art work done on the outside. I was a bit surprised that not a lot of people were present in the temple, which worked out well for us as we were able to pray in peace. The sad part was I couldn’t take pictures and I was really looking forward to taking pictures there. Behind the temple lane, there is a route to go Brahmagiri mountains – the origin of river Godavari. We wanted to trek there, but it was going to take approx. 4 hours to finish the trek and hence decided against it.
After visiting the temple, we decided to visit the Coin Museum which was en route to Nasik city. The coin museum is maintained by Indian Institute of Numismatic studies and was reasonably maintained. The collection that they had was also alright, I didn’t find it very good – but my wife did, so don’t know. It is worth visiting once though. The entrance fee is Rs. 10 per person and you can take pictures inside. The collection includes coins from 1st century BC until the latest currency issued by the Government of India. I was very surprised to know that each kingdom had their own currency and was wondering how or what was the exchange rate for those currencies in that period. Whether the one currency could be used in different kingdoms, if yes – how did it work. I am sure there must be some research on this – however, I have yet to come across it. We finished touring the museum in approx. 45 mins and then decided to head back to the city.
On our way to the city, we decided to make an impromptu trip to the Gangapur dam. The dam is located on way to Sula Vineyards and is very scenic. However, to visit the dam you need to take prior permission from the Chief Executive Engineer, P.W.D. Trimbak Road, Nashik. We didn’t have any permission and were just trying our luck. We found our destination after 30 mins of driving and found an open gate. I was hoping that probably the God’s have been kind to me today and I will get to see the dam without any permission. We walked through the gate and after a few meters heard someone calling us from behind. We walked back and the person asked to show the permission document. I said I don’t have any and I just want to go and see the place and take some pictures. He flat out refused saying that without permission you cannot enter inside. Apparently a couple of years ago, some students had committed suicide at the dam and since then you need to take permission to the visit the place. With a heavy heart, we turned around and started driving towards the city.
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