Plants and Pots

I had got two Bonsai's 6 weeks back and now they are finally Blooming. I am happy and all smiles and its wonderful to see them bloom.



This one here with the yellow flowers is Tecomaria Capensis, commonly known as Cape HoneySuckle. Every day water and full sunlight are her requirements and one fine morning she bloomed in bunches.






The one on the right is Adenium Obesum commonly known as Desert rose - shrubby one that survives in deserts. The unique character of this tree is its fat trunk which is used to store water and hence the name "Obesum". Its native to western Africa and Arabia.I love this one and especially its fat base.Normally its easier for me to allocate a gender to these plants and refer to them as he/she. But this one is very manly with its fat trunk and strong base but at the same time requires extreme care and tenderness of a woman. I have been waiting for this one to bloom and finally the day arrived with several small buds and one flower. I had watered her in the morning and there was no sign of a flower, half hr later when I had come out to place her in the sun, there was a bright pink flower. I still regret not having witnessed it:-) She has to be placed in sun all day and requires water only twice a week. Overwatering causes her to shed her leaves and extreme care has to be taken in winter as this is a tropical plant and needs high temperatures to survive.

Now I am all set to invest in Plants and as a start I decided to buy two simple pots one weeknd and paint them with the left over Asian paints at home :-) They have turned out pretty well. Need to plant some kitchen herbs in these ones. I love the colors and haven't had the heart to fill them up with soil yet. Cheers to more colorful Pots :-)

My First patch of Green

As I write this, I see Mayank standing right in front wearing a green T-shirt :-)
The move to the new house has done wonders for me. The house radiates of positive energy and feels wonderful to be a part of this space. The best part about the house is the openness and ample sunlight that it receives. The kitchen window welcomes the morning sun and all the balconies in the house receives the afternoon and the evening sun. Considering the amount of light the house receives, and inspired by Ambika and Rekha I decided to get some plants.

I was not a Plant lover when I got my first plant but now, I am hooked to them. I bought my first plants from Green Essence and was inspired by Shabari and Dhanya who run the place. They are plant lovers and you can see that instantly. Its a small colourful place and houses many different plant varieties.Its a must visit for anyone with a green thumb.

Here' are the pics of first three plants I got. The first two sit comfortably on my Kitchen window. These are local arrangements and require very little maintenance. Indoor plants with every little sunlight and alternate day of watering. The last one is the Malli poo (Jasmine) :-) Need Sunlight but not the afternoon harsh sun. I keep her in that part of the balcony which receives sunlight for couple of hrs. I water her everyday and she blooms beautifully.

Sattva's Anniversary Issue

Sattva is a monthly e-magazine with the vision To be an effective platform for the sharing of news, views and appreciation of the social change process, thus raising awareness and encouraging individuals and organizations to meaningfully contribute to society. Thanks to Ratish ,now I am a part of the Sattva Team.

Sattva celebrates its first birthday this month!! 12 issues, a reader base that's grown to more than 3000 and an enthusiastic team of a dozen youngsters are just a few reasons to celebrate! The dream of a few of us has become a glowing reality. We hope to keep the passion afire with even greater flame in the coming months!

1-year old Sattva celebrates the spirit of youth this month with "Asha – A Million Rising Suns". Gen-Next, we realized while penning down this issue, manifests in a bunch of energetic, dynamic and highly aware youngsters who are not afraid of walking down un-trodden paths to make tomorrow a brighter day than today. Be it through film-making, college community groups or economic reforms, youngsters are making their mark in the development sector today. And in their eyes lives the Asha of a tomorrow that we can all be proud of.

We profile this month:

• National Youth Foundation, an organization for youth, who work on bringing youth NGOs together on a common platform.
• Pavita Chalam, a native of Bangalore, and a graduate studentat the New York Film Academy’s Filmmaking Program who uses films as an effective tool to bring to fore issues that need attention.
• Jain College's highly innovative community radio program.
• Nitin Rao, our 21-year old Sattvic Celebrity talks about how for-profit social initiatives are the way of the future
• Aaditeshwar from the Waterloo University, Ontario, our guest columnist on building low cost rural networks to reach thousands.
• A very interesting look at the Rajinikanth fans association and the community initiatives they carry out under the superstar's banner.
• Meet the faces behind Sattva in our team sketches and the founder introduction page.
• Messages for Sattva from our readers.

You can download the issue at : http://www.itihas.org.in/SattvaSeptember2007.pdf

You can know more about Sattva here : http://www.itihas.org.in/sattva.html

Trip to Bheemeshwari Fishing Camp

120 Kms from Bangalore, away from the milling crowd is Bheemeshwari Fishing Camp.Its an ideal place for anybody who would like to travel less and still experience a slice of nature that is completely unique and enjoyable.So when the five of us decided to get to this place couple of weekends backs, the one thing that we all had in mind was Water rafting.Jungle Lodges & Resorts (JLR) offers one day and two day programmes for enthusiasts interested in exploring this place. Having booked a Qualis for the 5 of us, we started at 7:30 in the morning with all the excitement.The last 45 minutes of the drive was an eye treat which involved threading through the woody landscape with lush green plantations and with river Cauvery coursing along the path.We reached the camp at 10:00 am after a short lovely drive.

Our Water Rafting activity was postponed to 11:30 from 9:30 due to lack of instructors and this gave us some time to explore the camp. The camp had three types of accomodations: Cottages, Log huts and Tent Houses.The well furnished cottages were double bedded with attached bathrooms. The Log Huts were most ethnic and blended beautifully with the jungle background. The Tent Houses though small, offered the best close-to-nature experience.In front of every tent and cottage was a small hammock for two. These hammocks can be quite tricky especially if a person is trying them out for the first time. The act of balancing oneself in a hammock is an art in itself. Apart from these small hammocks, there were 2 Huge hammocks, which would accomodate more than 20 people. 15 feet from the ground and supported by around 6 trees, these hammocks serve as an ideal berth for sky watching.

After spending 90 minutes exploring the camp,we started off on our water rafting journey.since none of us had ventured rafting before, we were complete strangers to the act of being thrown offguard in water and coping with the currents. Geared with our colourful life jackets,helmets and oars, we marched towards our raft. The two instructors of our raft, gave us instructions on rowing backward and forward along with the seating arrangements. Well one thing we were made to realise was not to leave the oars when you fall offguard in the water as the oars are expensive and yes,more than your life :p So jump with the oar. If the instructors manage to pull you off the water, great; if not return the oar to them before drowning!With forward and backward strokes of the oars,the 2 plus rapids , was definitely a great begininning for us newbies. The 7 kms stretch of rafting was good fun and guess what, all of us were made to jump forcefully in the water and hang on in for 15 minutes before the instructors lifted us back on to the raft.From praying for our lives before being seated on the raft to looking for more powerful rapids after our rafting, it definitely was a great experience.

After the one and half hour rafting journey, we split for lunch. Lunch at JLR consisted of decent veg and non-veg dishes. After having our stomach full, we spend couple of hours lazing around in the hammocks before going for the coracle ride. We took a 1 km ride on a jeep to the coracle ride destination. Meandering through the greenery amidsts the forest of karnataka, the 3 km Coracle ride on Cauvery was complete pleasure.Getting back to the camp had two options:some of us trekked the way back to our camp with the help of a guide while the rest took the jeep back. Once we were back to the camp, snacks and tea were served and we winded our trip by 6:00 PM with some souvenirs from the camp which included a JLR cap and T-shirt.

To know more about Bheemeshwari and JLR's accomodation, rates and activities, you can get on to : http://www.junglelodges.com/resort_overview.asp?resort=Bheemeshwari

I am Tagged

I have been tagged by KK. I have to come up with a list of things I would like to do before I get old and lose all the attributes required for my functioning :p

So here goes the list not in any particular order:

1. Learn Photography. I have a Canon 400D Camera and I have been trying my hand at it for a while. I am a sucker for Black & white pictures.My best score would be when I would be able to capture moments in black & white.

2. Have a library of my own.I have been reading and collecting books for the last one year in an attempt to create my own library.

3. I would like to own all the books of few selected favourite authors of mine.

4. I would want to travel around the world and see places whose beauty and Placidity I have read about. Just for this, I would love to work for "travel and living" and be one of those lone travellers on the show.

5. Make my Millions Ethically.

6. Learn the art of designing jewellery and crafts. Open a small antique store with my own jewellery designs, silver accessories and figurines.I would also like the store to house and promote eco-friendly goods.

7. Make a documentary film aiming social change.

8. Write books.

9. Learn to make cartoons.

10. Learn swimming, horse riding and adventure sports.

11. Ride to Ladakh on my bullet with that 'someone special'.

12. Learn carnatic music and dancing. Many a times, I imagine myself to be a singer performing on stage and get too involved while singing my favourites. Once, forgetting that I was in the middle of a conversation with a friend of mine over the phone, i began singing and continued it for whole 5 minutes till my friend had a good laugh.

To summarize, I would like to make a living writing travel books as i ride around the world on my bullet while filming a documentary on rural india, singing and dancing all the way to my next destination.

Stickies

A small update on the things i need to blog on:

1) Trip to beemeshwari - Once i download the pictures to my laptop, I shall blog on my trip.
2) Junk Shopping at Commercial Street - Yet to download the pictures from my Camera
3) Pizza Grannies - A Must read!

I managed to pack 2 Pizzas with Bombay Masala Flavour from Pizza Grannies for dinner tonight:) BURP!

A Refreshing Beginning

Finally after days of contemplating to update my previous blogs, BANG! Last week I landed on this funky blog name BULLETS AND BANGLES! Since then I have been waiting and wanting to create a fresh blog and update it regularly.BULLETS cos I ride one and BANGLES cos i love them and together they sound whacky! I have this silly habit of creating a blog, updating it for couples of months, yell at the whole world that I have a blog and then Swoosh it down the drain! Hopefully this time I blog to my hearts content and write till i tire!

Finally my friends from chennai are coming down to bangalore and this has materialised after 2 months of rigourous planning , booking and cancelling tickets umpteen times.We have plans of travelling to beemeshwari fishing camp for rafting and I had created a fuss about not joining in as I was tired of travelling every other weekend.I havent yet booked for myself. With all the rains in bangalore its been hard to get out of the house even to work.I got completely drenched this morning in an attempt to drop one of my friend M in his office at Outer Ring road which is 12 kms from mine and get back all the way to my office.I do like rains as far as I am inside the house sipping tea and watching the rain.

Work has been crazy for the last couple of weeks and kept me occupied. And now its back to one of thsoe lazy weeks with nothing much left to toil. Anyways I have decided to make use of some time to get the house cleaned, Transfer the sapling from Green Peace in a mud pot and get a 2 wheeler driving license.Ah, the good old days.