Hogenakkal

Couple of months back, I went for a trip with my family to hogenakkal falls.
I was pretty resistant in the beginning for this trip, considering that it was a long distance to cover 400 km (200+200).

We started @10 am in the morning. It was a sunny morning. None of us knew the way. We had a picture of the google maps. At around 11 am we were on the highway reaching Hosur. At this point in time we were not too sure of the best route to take. We were in search of a petrol bunk and we did get one.
Tej said "Full Tank"

Meanwhile I asked the fellow there "What is the best way to Hogenakkal?'

He said the National Highway route (the one suggested by the google map) will be 30 - 40 km more than the state highway route. I thought that this would total to ~70 km in total extra driving and I asked Tej to take the state highway route. We started driving and found that roads were very bumpy and there were many deviations to take to reach. I think we almost asked 10 people on the way - "What is the way to hogenakkal?'.

We finally reached at 1pm. All of a sudden many people surrounded our car, stopped us from moving ahead. They asked us to take a parking ticket. It seemed as if it was a rule to take parking ticket before entering the place. We refused taking the ticket and went and managed to park the car at a safe place. We had prepared lunch and had got a lot of chips etc for this outing. We loaded our bags completely with all the eatables and started. On the way one fellow followed us asking if we wanted a trip till under the falls.

At first we were reluctant taking a strangers boat to the falls. He then showed his ID badge, and we were convinced to take his boat. He asked us 1500 in the beginning, after negotiation he agreed for 1000 Rs.

This package included the boating upto the falls and taking us to a spot for lunch and free time for few mins and then back to the place where we started.

6 of us in the boat including the boat fellow! It was a round boat, made of bamboo. The depth of the water below us was a minimum 70 ft. Man was it scary. A boat that looked weak and 6 full grown people in it with out any life jackets! And the best part was only Tej knew swimming among all of us.

It was a very hot afternoon and water was simply perfect (it was cold). He row'd us for 5 mins and we reached a small hilly area where was had to walk and catch up with him once again at the other end. This place had the view point of the "Hogenakkal Falls". It was beautiful, must say !! We caught with the boat guy down the hill, and there it was "The falls". He managed to take us close to the foot of the falls. We were not under it for a long time though, it was amazing. We then headed to a place where we rested and had lunch and took rest for 30 mins. Then we were on our way back, the same route that we took to come.


It was 6pm when we started for home and 10 pm when we reached.

Election '09

Have a lot of things in my mind to pen down.
But I am restricting this blog to the description of a small experience, pre India election 09.

22 April, officially all campaigning for election 09 was supposed have frozen.
I was really tired, had got up late that morning and had to rush to office (was really late).
I had friend who was traveling with me. We had hired an auto to reach office at a reasonable time :-)

On our way, (Note, before I proceed further: Murphy says: "If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway”)
So, here we came across the stuff we dint expect!!


1. Election campaign!! - Which was not supposed to happen
2. Traffic jam (close to 1030 hrs, least expected to have a "traffic jam" at this time of the day),
It happened because of the campaign of course.
3. Crackers (madness) - All thanks to the folks campaigning. They laid down a 1000 wala bijli in front of the
vehicles and continued their march. And guess what, the crackers were right in front of the auto we were traveling in.


Well, the above points are digestible. But, there is one thing that got me fuming.
There were 100s (I really mean 100s of bikes and 10s of cars following the leaders van.)
Who says its recession....? Atleast not for these folks. Take a look at one of the pictures I happened to take.
(Not a clear one, VGA camera)

Another one !!

"Everyone after all is flesh and bones so why discriminate? In our world it is the soul and the mind that defines a persons beauty" - author unKnown.

Came across these words somewhere recently. These were some words I wanted to pen from quite some time. Never too late, after all what for is this blog. :)

CoFFee !!

I am writing this blog on my way home, sitting on the last seat of my bus (office ka).I can’t do anything other than work / sleep in the bus with my best friend "MY IPOD" always on me. My sweet chit chat partner got married and her bus route has changed :). Struggled to take that pic.


Times have changed and so have things around. 2 months ago, I used to have the best of my friends (in office) around me. One by one each person departed, as they moved on to pursue what was good for them.

In office were- 4 of us, we got acquainted in Nov 07.
I will name our gang as "coffee talkies". (I made up this name, just to spice up the blog.We never had a "gang" and stuff)
As the name goes, we always used to meet up for coffee 2 times a day (at least 1ce).

Ahhh, those coffee breaks. I miss every bit of it. Everyday we had a topic to engage us in chit chatting the whole while, many a times bitch about people :D
It was quite a good stress buster. I enjoyed (so did all others) every sip of coffee we had.

Not to forget my PJs

Instance: This one - I am very famous for this-

Question: Whats up Sam?
Reply: Roof!!!
Again me: Sorry, bad joke!! :D
I am almost used to answering this way. Some times deliberately, but not always.
Such PJs just comes out of my mouth even if I don’t wanna make em.

Coming back to "coffee talkies". Once it boiled down to 2 from 4 people, I stopped having coffee.I won’t say I quit on coffee. I have had 5 cups of coffee from 25 Nov 08. When my mind stops working, a caffeine kick does the magic of gearing it up.

MISS U ALL ...

HappY NeW YeaR

Bye Bye 08, Welcome 09.

The welcoming of 09 seemed pretty quiet and calm around me. I decided that I am not going to come back from work and just sleep on a 31 Dec Night. I wanted to do something exciting. So I baked a Cake.

I know, U might be laughing, thinking...
What is exciting in this?


Here it is: I prepared an "EGG LESS", "Comparatively LOW CAL -> as in, with out butter, healthier", "YUMMY", "CHOCOLATE", CAKE.
I know this sounds good for all those cake lovers, who are watching their calories and want to eat a cake with full heart :-)
(If you are still laughing/giggling reading this. Then don’t read further, it is not required.)

I wanted to share the recipe of the same in this blog.

Ingredients:

1. Dates (Seed Less, Finely chopped) - 1 Cup
2. Milk - 1 and half Cup
3. Maida - 1 and half Cup (I am not sure if there can be a replacement for this)
4. Honey - quarter Cup
5. Sugar - 3/4 Cup (Depends, if you want to reduce this quantity. I was a little generous here. Or use sugar Free as a replacement. )
6. Cocoa Powder - 25 Gms
7. Baking (cooking) Soda - Half t-spoon
8. Baking Powder - 1 and half t-spoon
9. Bru Coffee Powder (optional) - 1 t-spoon (For flavor)
10. Caramel (optional) - 2 t-spoons (For flavor)
11. Cherry (Finely chopped) - 50 gms (your choice for the quantity, More or less)
12. Nuts (Finely chopped) - I Put cashew 10 pieces. (This is also your choice for quantity. As an option you can use Badam also.)
13. Vegetable Oil - 3/4 Cup
14. Pinch of Salt


Preparation time: 40 mins.

Procedure:

1. Put the following in to a Blender:
Dates (Seed Less, Finely chopped) +
Milk +
Honey +
Sugar

And Blend the above until all the ingredients are fine mixture and no longer grainy.
Keep this aside.


2. Put the following into a bowl: (Let the bowl be big enough to home all the ingredients)
Maida +
Cocoa Powder +
Bru Coffee Powder (optional) +
Baking (cooking) Soda +
Baking Powder +
Pinch of Salt

The above mixture must be sewed twice. Throw away the waste.

3. Keeping the remaining in the same bowl. Add the point 1, blended mix into the bowl.
Add the:
Cherry (Finely chopped) +
Nuts (Finely chopped) +
Vegetable Oil +
Caramel (optional)

4. At this point all the ingredients are into the bowl. Now this must be mixed by the cut and fold method. (Yes, we will not beat the mixture as for the normal cakes).i.e. Take a big spoon and fold the mixture until the whole thing looks like a brown paste. (this will be a little loose paste, but the viscosity will be low. I hope you dint mistake the word paste.) This process will take 2 mins.

5. Take your Cake baking tin.
(My brother calls it the - "Bake a cake in Me bowl")

Grease it with Vegetable oil (just a few drops). Sprinkle some Maida on the greased Tin evenly all over.
This makes your baking tin Ready for the cake mixture to be poured in.

6. Pour the mixture into baking tin and spread it evenly.
(Keep your Oven preheated at 160)
Put it into the oven. Bake it for 20 - 25 mins.

7. Remove the cake carefully from the oven.
To check if your cake is done, poke a needle into the cake to see if the needle comes out clean. If it does, then your cake is done!!! (Else keep it in the oven for 5 more mins)

Yuppie!!!!

This cake Ideally serves 10. That is, if you are not a lavish eater...