Ash's First Hollywood venture.

Aishwarya Rai’s first mainstream Hollywood movie is due early 2007, "The Last Legion". She plays a role of a warrior princess.



Well, nothing new to expected role wise. But would want to see it.

Halebidu

This was a long pending addition to the Hoyasala arch. Had been to Chickmaglur and enroute visited Halebidu. We had an hour break at this place. But, it would be worth spending a complete day here.

[Beside is the snap of a 9 foot Queen's Nandi. Well with no camera along had to juggh a friend's camera and tried some good (?) ones :-) ]

Planning to visit it once more, then probably more say and more photos.

The Departed

Watched "The Departed", and i just liked it! The movie revolves around a simple plot of cross placements of recruits. Well, there is nothing much to the story other than a sheep in wolf clothing-wolf in sheep clothing-cat-chase-raccoon-chase-rat-chase-rats-chase-cat [for better reviews]. But, liked the the direction [well it has its share of goof ups]. The narration, quick paced, makes the audience with a ok-believable plot and the ends with a twists and turns [nHmnnnn, a triple cross or a quadruple cross???? :-? ]. And what can be told about the acting, each one trying to outwit the other with their performances, even Alec Baldwin who has the least part, pulls out well. Well it also has its cons...some a gory scenes were blood is the main element and a huuuuuuuuuuge share of f-words [Well, as a friend put it, if the censors had exercised their scissors the movie would have shrunk by another 30 minutes] The dialogues weren't bad either, but a kind of excess :-)
Now to the interesting question, when shall we expect our own bollywood version of it?

Hell-mets in Bangalore

The government with a lot (?) of thought(?) decided [unsure of who the benefactors of the decision, the riders or the over stocked helmet lobbyist..., anyway coming back to point] to protect the head of the two wheelers plying around the cities [ Aug 30 '06, The Hindu], with "helmets". This rule was deferred by a month to be modified to protect only the rider's head. Again deferred by an another month to reinforce the helmet stocks. Finally the day chosen to enforce was 1st of November 2006.


Found this crowd, on the infamous helmet street [lalbagh road], standing in a queue!! to buy one.

But one should really appreciate the lack of laxity of the public, found a mad rush to pick what ever stocks were available.

So, God save the public or should i say, the stockist ;-) ... in fact, would predict that government, say in 2-3 years [when the stocks are again full], would make pillion riding with helmets mandatory!!

The last (lost??) of Green Route

Green Route, a rail track snaking around the shiridi ghats, has been a trekkers solace. Many trekkers have quoted this place for its scenic beauty, the trek, also popularly known for "tracking", has bridges over the gorgeous valleys and long black tunnels to cross. To summarize in a single sentence i would put it as, a walk with a negligible down gradient, comprising of 17 kms [From Donigal to Yedakumari] over looking the charmadi ghats with kumara dhara flowing along on our left.

Around 1997-98, the railways decided to convert the existing narrow gauge tracks to broad gauge, since then, hordes of trekkers [1, 2, 3 ..] have taken this pilgrimage and have shared their experience and i have nothing extra to share.

This trek had been one of my favorite ones and was always the spoken amongst with Som and Santosh, since, we went in December 2003. Recalling those events, the cross of the first bridge - a pounding heart over the curvaceous track with no planks - bats ridden tunnel - the night stay on the platform of yedakumari with a starry night to watch - the mosssst lighteeeeeeeest dinner one could eat and some one telling a lullaby story of a king and his two queens. Then, we had planned for a single day trek to be out of yedakumari, by noon and onto Bangalore-Mangalore by evening as people had blogged. But, some gross miscalculations, we didn't find the exit route to the kempuhole, though we reached yedakumari by 3 pm, had the stay on the platform for the night.

[for the analogy of the terms check out rails-track-in-wikipedia.]

Planks :- These are a 2 ft width metal sheets running parallel to the tracks on the sleepers.

But this time we had a better equip ed ourselves, food, clothing, sleep gear. And, the plan was to walk from Donigal to Kukke, with a break at yedakumari for the night. Got to know during travelling to sakaleshpur that the second leg of the journey was 30 kms [i.e. from yedakumari to kukke] That was quite a disappointing information, as we would need to push hard to reach before the next night. We started the trek at 10 am with the usual "some initial glitches". Writing a minute to minute account would not be possible [would link the info soon].

The stuff which this trek distinct over the previous one was

• Rain, crossing the bridges was a arduous task. with some 2-3 bridges with no planks, it was more time consuming.
• Fog, we hit quite a fog after the evening rain we could just see some 3 ft ahead that too with the torches.
• Crossing the bridge in the dark, one of the slowest cross, but we did it.
• last but not the least, The Train.

With onset of this monsoon, most of the trekkers [even us] are unaware of the trains started on this route. We came across it twice and we were kind of lucky both the time.

Now with the trains, station yedakumari is back to life. We, after reaching yedakumari were kind of apprehended by the station master, who told us the aftermath of similar uninformed trekkers, who jumped off the bridges on fear getting run over by the approaching trains and were nearly killed.

So, from my opinion, would strongly suggest to avoid this trek route. The main problem been the trains, the timings of these are not adhered to and sometimes one can expect 5-6 of them plying that the day. The most dangerous situation is when if one is caught unaware either in the tunnel or on the bridges, [the bridges, been the worst with no side to move over, one would have to run over the planks, but some long [200m and 500m] bridges don't even have planks!!].

It is quite sad that this route would be lost for trekking, wish a parallel trekable route running along the tracks would have been created. Until this happens, the next time i would checking out the green route would be on the passenger trains some time next year.