Smile and Wave !!

10 days of planning finally culminated into one of the best and most hectic 48 hours I have had so far. I had a long weekend coming up, Saturday and Sunday. It seemed a good opportunity to make a short trip to manali, kullu, see the sights and come back.... That was the plan. But as usual, Life, the universe and everything else played their usual roles by making the plan unsure upto the very last moment. At first there was this chance that I would be out in the field on friday, requiring my brother to travel by bus to join me at some point. then came the weird demand from my boss that we move into the field on saturday, a holiday.  Thankfully, the storm did not come to pass, and I got my weekend off. So off we went with a backpack of clothes, armed with a Olympus camera and looking forward to some quality time together.  Being the tourist season, we had had the foresight to book 2 seats on a semi-deluxe overnight bus to manali about 1 week in advance. The govt. bus it t...

Outskirts of Hamirpur, HP. Thanks to the clouds and haze it was tolerable. Dam site at Pandoh, 20 kms from Mandi (towards kullu) Another view of the reservoir at Pandoh From a cable bridge at a place called Hanog, 27 kms from Mandi (towards Kullu) The cable bridge at Hanog Chilling out!   Uber cool Man! uber cool

No post since Feb 1. what a pity. But I must say, that Feb, March and April 2010 have been singularly busy and chaotic. I have no idea how the days have gone by. And yet, here I am staring May in the face and wondering whether time is also relative. Still in Shimla, enjoying the weather. Although it did get warm, (warm mind you, not hot as it gets down south) during March and April, so much so that I was speculating about temperatures in May touching almost 34-35 deg Centigrade here in Shimla. Now that May has finally dawned, much to my surprise, the temperatures are cooler and the days more comfortable than the previous month. At least that is the case for now. The reason being light showers every other day interspersed with the sun peeking out for a few brief moments. As a result, the wind has gotten a bit chilly, and there is the constant rumbling of the gods anger to back it up. Talking of backup - there goes the power supply just as I write this. Today is an exceptionally...

Curses! I have been saying that for almost 2 months now, since the beginnings of December when it started getting cold. I have been waiting for it to snow, bu to no avail, it kept getting chillier, made me lethargic no end, but the reason I was enduring all that failed to show up, snow! well, it finally did show up, in early January and that too when I was out of town in Delhi! talk about fate, all I got to see was some remnants of snow on the streets, which has partially thawed and frozen back during the night into solid ice. All i got to see was photos of people frolicking in the snow, while I was in Delhi, stupid meeting. And i put those pics a few posts ago i think. Well, today once again the weather started out clear as crystal and by late noon it has deteriorated to such an extent that my boss feels it just might snow. Its been all cloudy and dull for an entire week now almost. looks like I may at last witness some snow, if the cursed thing happens this week. At least this we...

On my visit to Singapore in September 2008, I came to realize what lousy junk we are served in our country in the name of Chinese food, right from the dhabas by the road side and the highways and gali - nukkads to many of the hi-fi, snazzy, snooty and 'posh' restaurants claiming to serve so called authentic Chinese Cuisine. What I tasted in Singapore was a far cry from the garlic rich, spicy and deep fried stuff we get here. I wont go into details, but it was the best noodles I had ever had (and I aint talking about maggi). Since then, my brother and me have labelled the Chinese food that we get in India (mostly prepared by Nepalis) as Chiness; pronounced chai-ness . I aso remember seeing a board in Goa which advertised 'Authentic Goan Chinese Food'. Now, at least that guy was honest :). Today, on  trip to Bilaspur, after having foregone breakfast and lunch in the name of the environment and my employer ( paapi pet ke liye kya kya karna padta hai ), we finally could...

Ah! Finally! After a long and dry spell, we have rain again in Shimla. And what a sight! The temperature dropped instantly! and the clouds started decided that it was time to descend into the valley and obscure everything in their whiteness. I love this place! Unlike my home in Goa, The soil in Shimla does not give off the heady musky odour when wet. Well, I miss that! Maybe if I could introduce some actinomycetes in these soils :P

Now that I have a rhyming, stupid title to my blog, which may seem to some as a vain effort to write something cool, lets move on to the real purpose of this post. It has been a thoroughly busy week, no make it fortnight. I have been downright busy since the 19th of nov. and look at the date today, its 29th. ten days have gone by in a whiff. Lets go chronologically here, timeline is very important 19th to the 20th of november 2009 - The H.O. had planned a special training workshop for its team in shimla, that would be my colleagues and me. this workshop was supposedly to train us in some documentation system designed to keep tabs on the project progress, its activities, the actvities and progress / performance of the people working on the project, the sub-agencies ad infinitum. Altho the manual said it was to be used for betterment of the program and those working for it and not as a policing tool, I fail to see how a system basically designed to keep tabs and checks on all te st...