Muir Woods National Monument

“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
― John Muir

Well, I did walk into this amazing wonderland, perhaps one of the best preserved places I have witnessed yet. This summer I got an opportunity to visit the west coast of the US and while planning my short schedule I squeezed in a day to make sure I visit this beautiful place. Muir Woods National Monument was established in 1908 and is a unit of the National Park Service on the Pacific coast of southwestern Marin County, California, 12 miles north of San Francisco.

Muir Woods is an old growth costal redwood forest closer to the pacific ocean and to witness the same in person was absolutely inspiring. I also was amazed at the efforts gone into preservation of this wilderness heaven. I spent close to a full day at the park admiring the tall trees of the Sequoia (Sequoia sempervirens) forests. It was a beautiful day and the feel of coastal breeze was absolutely great. There were many visitors - absolutely enjoying their walk, admiring the tall trees, and having a peaceful time with their families and friends. 

It was the first time for me to see the redwood trees and it takes quite an effort to reach the canopy unless your neck is very flexible. These coastal redwoods are known for their height and the tallest tree at the monument is about 280 feet. Most of the trees at the monument are between 500 to 800 years old; and the oldest is apparently 1200+ years old. For a moment it all sounded and looked like a dream, but I thought (being a tiny human being of the 21st century) I was absolutely lucky to be there at that moment in time to witness them. 

Canopy reaching the sky

It was so thrilling to see those ferns, birds, insects, wild flowers, undergrowth of the forest etc., from the other side of the world. It sure felt home for me with full of surprises. Here are some photographs taken during my visit. Please note that these photographs does not do any justice to what I witnessed with my eyes out there. (click on the photographs to enlarge them)

Stream, ferns and the habitat

Ferns and wild flowers

Ferns

Sequoia sempervirens 

The trail through the woods

Trillium species (wild lily)

Shhh!

“There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.” ― John Muir

Cheers,

Srik

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be free

you see things
the way they are
you observe them
the way they work
you notice something
that is odd, different
you move on
and ignore the odd
or you panic
and shoutout
you never question
what why and how
you don't know

and you want it fixed 

but you don't want to know

and be free?

Srik

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Dodda Mavalli Katte | Neralu 2015

This year's Neralu had some of the coolest activities spanned across many places in Bengaluru for 3 full days. I think it was a brilliant effort to reach out to places where it matters the most. Like Dodda Mavalli Katte, M N Krishna Rao Park, NGMA and Bal Bhavan.

Dodda Mavalli Katte was a great discovery for me. The place is full of life ~ Trees and People. As the golden rays of early morning sun strikes the big bright beautiful branches of the ficus trees, the whole place gets illuminated; and in no time the place gets crowded with many vendors and people visiting to pray the tree goddess (Peepul Tree) and the snake stones. It is their belief system that protects these huge ficus trees at this place and the same belief that people think they are being protected as well! So, to celebrate trees, have tree based conversations, and to spread the joy of celebrating trees as part of Neralu 2015, this place was just perfect!

Here are some photographs I took at Dodda Mavalli Katte:  (click on the photograph to enlarge them)

Dodda Mavalli Katte and the Maramma Temple

Trees smeared with golden rays of early morning sun

Livelihood under the trees

Many fruit and flower vendors fill this place with colors

Dodda Mavalli Katte - Snake Stones

Many people visit this place to pray for the trees and the snake stones

Peepul Tree (Arali Mara)

Belief that protects trees and vice versa

Ficus and the snake stones

Neralu under the Neralu of huge trees

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Bangalore: A visual anthology photo walk | Neralu 2015

The greatest advantage of volunteering is that you get to meet amazing people. I was absolutely thrilled to volunteer and coordinate the photo walk event during Neralu - Bengaluru Tree Festival this year ~ Bangalore: A visual anthology Photo walk led by Vivek Muthuramalingam, one of my favorite photographers!

It was a beautiful winter nippy Sunday morning to walk down the streets of South Bangalore - listening to wonderful stories of fellow photo walkers and witness some really interesting filter coffee conversations! We started at 7.30 am from the Vasavi Convention Hall, VV Puram; walked on the Vasavi Temple street and witnessed many old bungalows with typical old Bangalore architecture; walked around the beautiful Sajjanrao circle park; had coffee at Hotel Janata; walked up to the Ashwath Katte and finally ended our walk after having masala dosas and coffee at the New Modern Hotel. Some photographs uploaded below.

No parking

Old bungalow of a doctor on the Vasavi Temple Street

Sunday morning at the Vasavi Temple Street

Post box and a Push cart at Sajjanrao Circle

Peaceful morning with the newspaper at Sajjanrao Circle Park

Walking through the green doors

Filter Coffee Stall at Hotel Janata

Corner Store at the Corner of the street

One for the phone number

Blue door and the two antique locks

Ferrari and the bright brown door

Ashwath Katte and the beautiful Ficus Trees

Vivek in his usual story telling mood :)

Cheers,
Srikanth

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Neralu 2015 - Do Attend

visit Neralu website for more details!

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CHERE PERFORMANCE DATA 2014

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Alumni Meet, Nostalgia and How It Connects

Last weekend was a very nostalgic weekend. Having graduated from the college exactly 9.5 years ago, it was deeply moving to meet some of my batch mates (2003-2005) again at the same place. A welcoming invite from the college alumni to attend the first ever alumni meet of our college - Canara Bank School of Management Studies (Central College MBA Department), Bangalore, made our weekend an awesome one! Thanks to some of our amazing bunch of seniors and our dear professors, the program was organized very well and it connected us all back in times that shaped our careers. All of us had something nice to look back and all of us had some nice stories to share. And of course it was fun to look at ourselves after 9.5 years and say oh man, you've changed a lot! ah, look at you - what happened to your hair?! how many jobs have you changed? what's your daughter's name? oh! so you're married!? and so on. We were absolutely thrilled to see some of our seniors whom we hadn't met even during our college days and there were representatives from every batch starting 1998-2000 batch.

We started our discussion with a very interesting question - 

What connects us back to this institution and what comes to your mind when you think of this institution?

A very thought provoking question which tickled our brains to instantly produce some amazing answers. Some of those answers were absolutely hilarious and some were dramatically long. Moderator did his best to keep the answers short. But all of us were in absolute flow to connect back with those beautiful days that shaped our lives. It was absolutely exhilarating for me to connect myself back to those days because it was those 2 beautiful years that turned my life around completely. I certainly would be very different today had I not joined CBSMS and I can only say that I was very lucky.

There is one specific incident that comes to my mind whenever I think of my college. It was during my third semester examination. Harish and I wanted to take a bit of deviation during our internship and we had managed to work on a very interesting project for 3 months in a very big NGO. It was not a easy decision for us to make and some of our friends even tried convincing us not to take any such projects considering the academic interests and scoring pattern in the exams. But we decided to go with it and be different. It was our Professor, M. K. Sridhar encouraged us to take up such challenging projects and he even guided us through our internship project. So we completed our project and were fairly satisfied with the outcome. It was a project on assessing the Quality Management Systems' impact on BAIF Institute for Rural Development and their projects throughout Karnataka.

A few months after we returned from our project, our professor drew our attention to a competition called 'National Social Impact Awards' organized by the SP Jain Institute of Management Research in Mumbai. He recommended us to write a paper on our 3 month internship work. Both of us were quite thrilled to see the call for papers, we worked on the paper and applied for the competition. We were not sure that our paper would make it to the finals given our last minute preparations. To our surprise out of several papers received, the organizers had shortlisted 6 papers and ours was the 6th one. We were in shock and we were equally ecstatic. But we were not sure of participating in the final round because of our third semester exams. We had no time to prepare, go to Mumbai, present our paper and come back. Also the competition dates were in between two exams and we had only 3 days gap between the two exams. So we decided not to go and we started preparing for our exams.

Our professor called us to his cabin one day and asked us if we are all set for the competition. We told him we decided not to go given our examination dates and all the mess. He asked us when is the competition, we gave him the dates. He asked us if it is coinciding with our exam dates. We said No! but it is between our exam dates and is a 3 day gap. He asked us if we participate, will we miss the exam dates? We said not exactly, but we will barely make it to the exam just in time. He immediately said 

so what's the problem here? It is very clear to me that you can write your 1st exam, leave for your competition, present your paper, come back and write your next exam.

Harish and I anxiously stared at each other, took a deep breath, and said, ok, we shall try and booked our train tickets!

We won the 2nd prize at the competition and were very thrilled to win against IIMA and other 4 premium B-Schools. We came back and wrote our exams and luckily we didn't fail either. Not that we did something very extraordinary, but the reason why I always think of this story is very simple. Whatever happened was possible only because I was at my college at the right time. My college gave me the platform to do the project I liked to do, my professor MKS inspired both Harish and I to take up challenging projects, he became our mentor for life; and our project enabled us to look at our own lives very differently; we made several friends for life; we built our professional network; we got into good jobs; we even started our own NGO and enrolled ourselves for a bigger cause; we learnt immensely and set ourselves a direction to move on. And I always think that all this would not have happened if I had not joined this institution. To me, my college was an ecosystem of infinite possibilities. 

This one story is a trailer of what happened to me since the day I joined the college and my life after that. And this was my answer to the question - 'What connects us back to this institution and what comes to your mind when you think of this institution?'

Cheers,
Srikanth

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