Trip to Puttaparthi from Bangalore – A must visit place

It was long time we have gone on a long drive and we were waiting for the right moment. Then came a Christmas weekend which we didn’t want to miss to go on a drive. After a lot of discussions we nailed down to Puttaprthi which is around 170km from bangalore. Me, my wife and my 5 yrs old daughter were joined by my two of my cousins. My cousins are not in Bangalore and they reached Bangalore the night before. We were all geared up for the next day trip.

The Preaparation

Then came the day of travel. As usual, the home department prepared food for breakfast which we thought save us some time. It also proved that we are very lucky to take that decision. There are literally no good hotels on the way till Puttaparthi which you can blindly rely on.

The Route:

NH7 –> Yelahanka –> DevanaHalli -> chikBallaPur –> Bagapalli –> A.P Checkpost –> take right diversion –> Puttaparthi

Ride on NH7 till A.P checkpost which comes around 100 km(approx)

After A.P checkpost, go around 5 km and you will see one big sign board with SriSatya Saibaba on the right hand side of road.

Take a diversion towards right to reach puttaparthi. After taking diversion, it is around 40Km to reach puttaparthi. It is just a single straight road till puttaprthi.

The NH7 till A.P checkpost will test your temptation to go above 150KMPH. Apart from some small stretches of road in between (around 10 km), the road is excellent all throughout. Near chickballapur, the road becomes narrow and it becomes wider once again afterwards. Most of the highway is with a proper divider. It is better to plan for food on your own as there are no reliable god hotels on the way. All you find on NH7 are not-so-hygeic dhabas which one avoids going with families.

We started at around 6 AM at home in Indiranagar and reached puttaparthi at around 10 AM with two breaks in between. The actual travel time may be around 2.5 to 3 hrs.

Breakfast on the highway:

My bachelor cousins showing their modeling skills:

Before reaching the actual Puttaparthi village, you will be welcomed by Satya Sai Super speciality hospital and you will be amazed to see such a gigantic and beautiful building.

SatyaSai Super Speciality Hospital:

We planned for a 2 day trip, hence we were not in a hurry to get down there and proceeded to Prashanti Nilayam directly. We reached the main village and tried to get a hotel booking. Since, it is christamas time, it is the peak time of the year for puttaparthi as lot of foriegn devotees come here during that time and stay till new year. The ashram where SriSatyaSaiBaba reside is called Prashanthi nilayam. All the hotels near prashanthi nilayam sounded very costly to us ranging around Rs.2000/- per day. It is usually difficult to get room accomodation inside the ashram and if you are ready to stay in a common dormitary, then you can go inside the ashram and get the same. That would be a better option. Instead, we opted to go for a choultry outside, that could get us two rooms with reasonable rate of Rs.250/- per day. We dumped our luggage in our rooms parked the vehicle in a side lane and started towards the Ashram.

As it was christamas time, there were special celebrations planned within the ashram. Usually, SriSatyaSaiBaba gives darshan two times per day. Once in the morning, for which one need to reach the ashram by 5 AM to be get a place nearby, so that you can get a better view of SriBaba. The second darsha is around 5 Pm, and for that we stood in the queue at around 2:30 PM. We were allowed to go inside the main hall at around 3:30 PM and the hall was so huge that it can accomodate more than 10K people I think. Sri Baba came around 5Pm. We were thrilled to see SriSatyaSai from so near by. We were also lucky on that day, since, SriBaba gave a speech for about 1 hr after a long time of around 1 year.

Inside Ashram:

Within the ashram, you can have lunch for a nominal fee of around Rs.4/-. The queue for lunch / snacks are big, but the queues move very fast. There are also some canteens within the ashram where you can get mouth watering snacks at very nominal costs (like samosa, puffs , cakes etc). We all ate as if we haven;t eaten for days :-) . There is also a big shopping mall within the ashram where you will get lot of things ( like what you get in bigbazar etc) for lesser price. The mall timings for gents and ladies are different. Surprisingly, all the gents did more shopping than the ladies. Opposite to the mall is a big book shop where you can get SriSatyaSai’s books at very less cost. We spent almost half a day within the ashram.

Outside Ashram:

There are 6 to 7 places to see outside the ashram within Puttaprthi village. To visit these places, it is better to hire an auto which takes to all these places for a package deal. It would be around Rs.200 for full auto. The places they take us are
SatyaSai Old Museum

SatyaSai New Museum

SatyaSai Birthplace

SatyaSai Gosala

SatyaSai Super Speciality Hospital

Following are few snaps of puttaparthi.

New Museum:

Giant Hanuman Statue:

On the third day, we started in puttaparthi at around 11:30 AM after taking brunch and started towards Bangalore. We reached Bangalore at around 3 PM with loads of memories of puttaparthi.

Note: One can club the trips to Lepakshi and Puttaparthi with proper planning. For Lepakshi, one needs to take diversion towards left after A.P checkpost.

A Decade over here

I remember the same day exactly 10 years ago. I was very excited, confused, and not sure how it would be and a bit proud that I would fill my purse myself. It was the first day of my first job. Today, after completing 10 years in this IT industry, I can say that I am equally excited and equally confused, though the excitement and confusions are for bit different aspects. I feel happy for whatever decisions that I took in some of my career junctions and also not at all happy for not taking some risks that I could have taken.

Following are some of my friends who also completed their 10 years in the industry on the same day.

Sastry .S.K
RamaKrishna Suvvada
Ramesh Bapanapalli

Honestly, it’s a fortune for most of the people in our college batch that we could catch the IT industry wave and made the most use of it. Without the IT industry, I would have never imagined me traveling to many countries across the world that I visited as part of our work assignments. The industry gave a real good opportunity for many of us and our families to get promoted from middle class to above middle class level. One good part I liked about this industry is that it has been able to content both kinds of people like “who live for doing jobs” and “who do jobs for living”. I think it’s time to stop for a moment , just look back and see what we have achieved till now and make plans for the next decade both personal and professional front. With this, I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues who are part of these 10 years for their support all through these years. Also, Thanks to the IT industry and Thanks to the Globalization.

Lepakshi - Biggest Nandi in India

It was sometime in April 2007 and it's just 3 weeks after i bought my first car swift.I was very desperate to go on a long drive. Already the weekend was half over, and on the saturday night 10 PM, we were browsing through the net to find out a near by destination we can go to and came across Lepakshi. As I am from andhrapradesh, we used to always see the lepakshi Nandi symbol on the "Lepakshi notebooks" in our childhood. Those note books were very famous during that time for their quality and less cost. Coming back to the trip, we decided to go to Lepakshi as it is only around 120 km away from bangalore. Immediately talked to my friend Sastry who also nodded to come surprisingly. Usually, he doesn't prefer to travel long distances.

Also, I called one more of my friend Ramakrishna who was in HinduPur (this is 15 km away from lepakshi) at that time in his in-laws place. He told that he would also join us from there and asked us to call him once we reach near lepakshi. My wife prepared nimmakaya pindi (something with lemon and rice flour), which saved us a lot during the trip. We started from home at 7:30 AM.

The route:

We started from CV raman nagar in bangalore and took the following route.
Outer ring road -> Hebbal flyover junction -> NH7 -> yelahanka -> Devanahalli -> chikBallaPur -> Bagapalli -> Lepakshi

The route till chikballapur was very good, after which there was some highway work going on at that time, due to which the road became narrow at some places.Also, from Bagepalli to Lepakshi, the road which may be around 12 km is also not that good. We took a break near chikBallapur to eat our breakfast.

The temple:

It took us almost good 2.5 hrs , as we took two breaks in between to reach the place. The place is rereally worth visiting whoever is interested in visiting historical places. The temple is very huge and it stands on a big rock. There is not much crowd and it was very peaceful. By the time we reached the temple, our friend Ramakrishna reached the temple from Hindupur. Luckily, his father-in-law is a very influential person in that area and hence we got a VIP welcome at the temple by the main priest of the temple. We had special darshan and pooja. The priest's son took us around the temple to give us a guided tour of the temple. I suggest anyone going to this place to take a tourist guide who are available at the temple entrance. Otherwise, you won't be able to appreciate the place and things around the temple. I would say it is a MUST to take a guide. The temple is from the era of VijayaNagara Samrajya. Following are some of the photos we took. The date is wrong in the photos though :)

Inside the Temple premisis

Big Statue of Nagendra

The Nandi:

Once the darshan and guided tour is over, we went to see the actual NANDI that is on the main road. Lepakshi Nandi is the biggest in India. It's a treat to watch such a gigantic Nandi. Actually, you can see the Nandi while reaching the temple itself.

Biggest Nandi Statue

Sastry, RamaKrishna and Me

Near by:

We didn't find any nearby good hotels. I think, one needs to travel to HinduPur which is 15 km away from Lepakshi to get to a proper restaurent.

Once done with all the things in Lepakshi, we headed towards hindupur to our friends' in-laws place where we had a heavy breakfast and started there at 3:30 to return to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore at around 6:30 PM. Overall, it was a very really a good trip to remember. Kudos to my friend RK and his family for their hospitality.

Trip to SriPuram - Golden Temple

Last saturday, we were finally be able to visit the Golden temple in Tirumalikodi near Vellore. Some of our friends, we have been trying to plan for this trip for the last 1 month, but not able to sync due to some personal/professional problems. At last, all synced up and decided to go on 19/01/2008. Totally, 4 families went together, consisting of 8 adults and 6 kids :). Hence, we booked a Tempo traveller with 15 seater. My friend Ramu insisted that we go for a one with A/C and Video, so that we can coolly engage the kids. So, he booked the same vehicle. At the end of the trip, all of us agreed that it is really worth booking.

The Preparation

Each one of us decided to take one activity to share the load. Hmm..I forgot to tell who all are went. It's Bharath, Suresh, Ramu and Me along with our families.Ramu took the lead role and booked the vehicle and bought some of the eating stuff like chips, biscuits etc. We could taste all varieties of chips available in the world:). We ordered food from a near by mess that serves decent food. We ordered Idli and Dosa for breakfast and Pulihora for lunch. As we have lot of kids onboard, we don't want to take chance with the food on the highways. Finally, this proved to be a better option to save lot of time. Suresh anna ordered one 20 L mineral water bottle, so that we don’t need to buy thousands of water bottles on the way.
All set to GO.

The Route

We took the following route.

Hosur Road -> Electronics City (NH7) -> Hosur -> KrishnaGiri (NH7)

Bargur(NH46) -> Vellore(NH46)

On the GO

We started in Bangalore by 8:30 AM. Actually, Ramu started at 7:30 AM in Ulsoor. By the time we picked up our last member Bharath in MarathaHalli, it was 8:30 AM. As it was Saturday morning, the always crowded Bangalore roads are not that crowded for a change. We reached near to Electronics City by 9:15 AM. By this time, all the kids started making noises indicating that they are hungry. To tell u the truth, all the adults are also equally (or) more hungry than the kids. We pulled over the vehicle near a tree shade and completed the breakfast.

The highway till Katpadi is a real treat for anyone who enjoys driving. It’s with a divider all along and three lanes on each side. So, anyone who is enthu to drive their new cars and enjoy long drives, I suggest this trip. Of course, we need to pay at least 4 tolls on the highway before we reached our destination. We paid Rs.370/- for all the tolls for to-and-fro. At each toll gate, there are well maintained rest rooms for gents and ladies. We couldn’t see any restaurants though. We stopped 4 more times on the highways to drink coconut water, to strech ourselves. At around 1 PM, we completed the lunch also within the Tempo saving some time.

We reached ThirumalaiKodi at around 2 PM. It’s a small village. All the vehicles are stopped at around 200 mts away from the temple entrance and diverted sideways for parking. We parked our vehicle in a tree shade outside before even taking the diversion for the parking lot. As we reached the main entrance, we saw lot of crowd and we felt that it is as crowded as Tirupathi. As soon as we enter inside the main entrance, there are 4 to 5 big queues on our right hand side. We thought it is for Darshan. But, to our surprise, they are for depositing the personal belongings and footwear. Any of the cell phones/Electronics items are prohibited inside the temple. They were telling that nothing other than some baby food and a bottle of water are allowed. We thought of not wasting time in this queue and put all our belongings in some bags and put it in our vehicle itself. I suggest anyone traveling to here, to store their belongings in their vehicle if possible, so that they can avoid long queues while depositing and taking back them again.

Darshan

As far as darshan is concerned, there are three types of Darshans. One is free darshan, which might take 3 hrs on weekends. Second is, Rs.100/- per head, which takes usually 1 hr, and allows us to go somewhat near to the GarbhaGudi. Third is Rs.250/- per head, with which they allow you to sit near the main temple for 10 min, they do archana etc. We took Rs.100/- ticket and started our journey towards the main temple.

The Temple

As soon as you enter into the main temple premises, you see a big corridor open to sky, two pathways along side. You can find some shops selling the souvenirs of the temple and some other stuff. Going further, you will be directed to a star shaped pathway which will be almost like 2 KM long to walk before you reach the main temple. Though it is 2 KM, you won’t feel like, it is that much far. Whole of this 2 km is sheltered with terracotta tiles which gives enough shade to walk peacefully. You can find some restrooms, water taps along the way every now and then, which would be very useful if you are going in the afternoon. Also, you will find some vendors selling milk and some small snacks like biscuits etc. Along the pathways, you will find the surroundings very scenic, and the landscaping is done in a beautiful way. Also, there are lot of boards with the quotes of ShakthiAmma which are very good.

Once reaching the main temple, we are again directed to be in different queues according to the ticket, and made to do one pradakshina. We are amazed to see the beauty of the temple. The temple is surrounded by pond of water which enhanced the beauty of the temple further. The temple pillars have sculptures like Peacock and elephants which gives a feeling that the whole temple is carried on them. We felt lucky to take the Rs.100/ tickets as we were able to enter the main temple. The ceiling of the main temple is a treat to watch. Once you are inside the main temple, you will forget seeing the god, as you are surrounded by full golden pillars. We took a peaceful darshan for abt 2 min.

We started returning from the place around 5:30 PM and stopped in Hosur at about 9:30 PM for dinner. On the way back we all played Antyakshari to keep ourselves engaged and enjoyed it thouroughly. Anna and Bharath sang some foot tapping songs J. Finally, We returned home at around 11 PM. It was a memorable trip altogether.

I’ll try to upload some of our trip photos soon.

You can visit official website of Sripuram temple at www.sripuram.org for more details on the temple.

This is due to my new year resolution

I've been thinking to have to my own blog at least for the last 1 year, but I've been postponing it even after registering myself here a year back. As part of my 2008 resolutions, I decided to have my blog at least this year. I intend to fill this blog with lot of stuff like our weekend outings etc. Also, I would like to add a sub-section containing latest articles/information related to technologies like CDMA, Linux, Networking. If you feel, these things interests you, do visit me again and again. You may find something useful to you.