Another lady in the life

Thanks to Bumsonthesaddle folks Nikhil and Rohan I got my trek 4300. She is a beauty and will be used to commute eventually. I need to decide on the lock and stand requirement(being a minimalist , I really do not want too many whistles). I picked her today morning and managed to somehow squeeze in the back seat of the vehicle. I overestimated the boot space based on earlier experience of pushing big wheelchair in the boot.

Now for the images – once i get them on flickr I will share them.

I must thank the bikeszone forum and the information shared generously there. It is localized and provides succint information about dealers, bikes, experiences, a sort of “ride together” lifestyle. Not yet as strong as the trekking and motorbike folks but pretty vocal and growing.

Break

via kaavyalaya

झाड ऊँचे और नीचे,
चुप खड़े हैं आँख मीचे,
घास चुप है, कास चुप है
मूक शाल, पलाश चुप है।
बन सके तो धँसो इनमें,
धँस न पाती हवा जिनमें,
सतपुड़ा के घने जंगल
ऊँघते अनमने जंगल।

 

In the recent break at Woodway homestay the coffee estate of the wonderful hosts (sushmita & shreedev) felt the same.  The drive to the place is hassle free except stretches of city travel of Hassan.  Easier way would be to take the bypass. Sushmita is detail oriented and takes the food preference, finds out about the age groups of people, dumps the detailed driving directions. Once you are cosy in the homestay – you get santosh’s good food and Sreedev’s humility and generous knowledge about the area, cultivation of coffee.  The stay is clean, simple and can accomodate multiple groups and has activities for the people who want it. Only kids can be bored if there are no other kids around to play with.  Cost can seem little higher but then you need the break. I hope once things settle down she can offer packages for longer stay. 
 

“Woodlands – Udupi” serves soup with south indian full meal

Gasp – In the recent trip I found that udupi’s old woodland dishes out soup, north indian subzi and pulav in full south Indian meal !!! What the world has come to?

In the home of the udupi food, one of the supposedly good restaurant serves up a mish mash which is how bad it was . Pretty pathetic affair, TD should have listened to me and managed with tindi in Mitra samaj (it is just next to the Krishna temple). Alas I had to suffer throug the food and live through to tell the tale.

The lunch  next day at Mangalore Woodland was better than Udupi food. We also bumped into small bonda/bhajji specialist nearby venkat swamy temple. Those bonda/Bhajjis were just awesome.

Pabbas adventure led by TD for icecream did not live upto its name as it was under construction . 

Food roundup

One thing which was lingering long after the travel was the smell and taste of the various food items I had chance to sample this time to Belgaum.

Belgaum to Bangalore – On the way to Belgaum by 4 wheeler, the major pitstops were unfortunately at only Reliance A1 places. Over the last 2 years I have found there are good and bad variations to this chain. One near the Chitradurga is good and provides better menu for both non veg/veg choices.  They can make bhurji, bhajji, puri-bhaji(with what ever choice) , usual indo-chinease affair(best to be avoided) and north indian spread(roti – order the tandooris), tadka daal, korma etc. The one before Hubli is unfortunately way below par even the normal roadside ones. It has awful upma and does not really work the full time, in early morning at 8 am – they just had one dish – upma. 

When you are near Hubli/Dharwad – it is better to take a trip to the city and enjoy better food. Dharwad has amazing pedhas(Mishra), wadai/idli and usual tindi stores(maitri paradise,bombay , brindavana ), if you get chance visit the university and gorge on awesome chilli bhajji in the evening with local chutney and cuppa half-cut tea with friends for company. The view/location/food is good.  Hubli is good for full meal kind of stop.   Chitradurga is blessed with better culinary items but unfortunately you need local home access to taste it. Every other restaurant has become “pan-indianized/secularized” serving everything from other country dishes(read the up north chinease ) to north/south offerings thus diluting the local offerings. Davangere has better name in terms of the food – benne/kali  dosai,  kara-mandakki ,menasinakaayi etc. In Bangalore/Belgaum one even finds shops with the name Davangere benne dosa.  Well sad part was I missed the kamath after Tumkur which has decent tindi items.  

2. Belgaum

Belgaum is blessed with good food joints like new grand, pranam(opposite globe), kamath, “ajanta” , “milan”  .  The food from these udupi restaurants is delighful and varied in offerings. Every place has different idli, vadai, dosai. I have never tasted non-veg in Belgaum so Jyoti(my wife) has exposed us to recently “khyber” food which according to connossieurs of the good nonveg is delightful.  I am not including Tilakwadi etc since I have never had food on other side except the road side stuff.  BTW the cold coffee stall near the GIT college on khanapur road is history replaced with hip liquor and grocery shops .   The toast is peculiar offering of Belgaum where 2 slices of bread are toasted and applied with butter and toasted again.  On top of it a little bit of “chutney podi”  and dash of regular coconut chutney. It is served with surprisingly onion rings(raw), but it tastes heavenly with cup of tea/coffee.  Vada pav of Balu in front of Ramdev is also very famous, with right fried color and ginger based Potato curry and fried green chilli. The pavs being fresh are just gobbled up smoothly. Highway hotel(irani)/Kakati/CBT bus stop(irani) has good tea and lip smacking snacks. The irani tea taste is a secret I have been trying to replicate and understoo one of the process step being – just boiling the conoction over and over again.  The idlis/dosai from Ajanta/New grand are wonderful preparation with just right lingering taste of udad pulse and local groundnut chutney(thicker version compared to watery bangalore version).  Belgaum also has the sweetmeat shops – nagauri etc who provide kunda/kardant(although gokak is famous for it – you get similar stuff in belgaum) etc.   Belgaum also has the freshest of the vegetables of all kind and delight for veggies. The usual fare is jowar roti with brinjal curry and dollop of butter.  The methi/palak/red palak etc too is abundant.  Jyoti was the one who also got the Kaaps ( fried cut veggies) introduced in our household available in some puneri restaurants. I was unaware of the dish till I ate it first time.

New grand is pretty old establishment on the college road with clean/small place for years. The chairs are old style laid with sunmica and pantry covered half with treakwood almirah with glass for sweet storage. It also has efficient cleaning service. Another item which has gained popularity with masses is Puri-bhaji – fluffy light puris with “usal” based bhaji is good tiffin item to splurge on. The taste of bhaji will be tad sweeter than usual ones and stand out because of “usal” base rather than potatoes.

Ajanta was renovated in nineties and converted into cosy place with trolleys for cleaning and nice seating places. It sees massive traffic and serves great dosai, upma. Restaurant has done nice thing – it has kept one big chunk in the front open and empty to allow for light and “take home” folks to sit around. The idlies here are delight simply becuase of the lightness they bring to the senses. Niether chutney nor sambhar overpower the senses so as to kill the taste of idli. Idli retains the original taste down to the last bite.

Pranam opposite the globe has tastiest chakalies(murruku) on the planet. Try the chunkier, lighter version with small hole in the middle. The taste will be amalgamation of ajwain, chana flour. It also has good idli and dosai in early morning. I am not big fan of upma – but Belgaum upma are usually sweeter and have less of peas etc and full of “chana”/”udad” pulse garnished with “sev” and “coconut grating”. It just melts in the first bite and taste stays with you forever.

3. Gadhinglaj

A place where my sister stays has fabulous store – mahalakshmi for bhadang which is served after 5 pm till 7 pm strictly. It has the neatly laid out row of benches with narrow table in between.  Vada pav too has stall owner who likes to serve it hot on the goa road. It has the folks from rajasthan for chaat/paani-puri etc. My sister makes heavenly misal pav which I miss terribly. 

4. Kolhapur is famous for rassa, sugarcane products, milk and misal. I like sugarcane and walking across to “jaggery makers- gurhal”  and having bite into fresh jaggery. The misal-pav is again local “usal” based and description can be had from earlier Gaurav Sabnis’s excellent entry. This misal pav is more closer to Puneri style with bigger portions.  Everything in Kolhapur is more of bigger portion – vehicles/houses/people and their food. The mutton/chicken preparations are beyond me. Good hotels to try out are Hotel Victor Palace, Panchshil(veg), Pearl, Vrushali,Rayson and Yatri Nivas etc. This time though the chances of meateaters did not have chance as we were on piligrimage to jotiba/mahalakshmi.

Special – Somebody has collected local specialities for each station/place.

Tindi – eatables/light snacks

Reviews like these make the mouth ….

Foodies

Vikram Karve’s unofficial food guide to pune/Mumbai.

Sigfood

Pooja with her Goan stuff

Nupur’s Hotstove - awesome content/recipe/photos. (you need to bow down to the creator for this much of perfection)

Somethings do not change –

On recent visit to Belgaum one of the major initiative was to be with mom to witness her trials and tribulations she faces as wife of a bedridden retired soldier. The treatment in the Bank etc for old people is terrible to say the least. The concept of customer at least as in case of old folks standing with pain and tension does not seem to be the main problem for the bank which has monopoly on the distribution of government official pensions.

1. Old folks stand in line for hours to just get a checkbook updated where a person doing the job can ask them to go to another counter arbitarily at any time without giving any reason(possibly valid reason – hungry – i am shutting down).

Resolution – just have automated check updating machines with attenders to help old/people who can not read/write the interface.

2. Old folks stand in the one or 2 lines for the pension for hours again with shoddy service and personal question barrage – why do you need so much money when you are old, why are you withdrawing all the money, where will you spend the money etc. Customers also undergo shouting of various kind completely arbitarirly based on the mood of the teller. The teller folks seem to be doing a favor by giving the pension.

Resolution – why not have special monthly counters for disbursement of the pension by more # of people.  Get the servicing folks a training how not to ask personal questions and treat customers with more respect. (you have to be present physically to see the treatment).

3. Transfer of pension and easier validation of the pensioner – This is another sadly ironic stuff, a pensioner is person who puts in x years of life in the service and deserves the humane touch only when he has become dependent or is keeping unwell and can’t keep pace with the life.  I have to ensure mother has enough heart to go back to bank and get the pension as everytime the bank folks ask uncomfortable questions before disbursing the pension due to my father. Earlier I used to tell mom to just leave the pension and not worry about it, but she considers that as her/father’s right to have and be on her own. I was apalled to see how she and her compatriots of older age have to struggle and literally made to beg the pension due to them, they are made to run from pillar to post to get signatures and approvals and everytime this keeps on changing. I was trying to ask the manager how this can change as father can’t move or talk – one was insensitive to the extent to say – it is not their problem – it stuck me it is true. Least they can do is understand the dependents and make simple arrangement for identification. But I was expecting too much. BTW this manager was “educated” upper crust material with unfortunate lack of understanding of “service” and brimming with arrogance of being SBI person.  Anyway point was earlier on few occassions we met with few folks who could understand the situation and help.  we are keeping the fingers crossed as the transfer of pension to place of location is very cumbersome and totally unclear. Armed forces too do not have good mechanism to address the same or simple information disbursal for the needy.

4. Credit card woes – As mentioned earlier the local credit card companies are fast loosing the trust of the customers by delaying the cheque encashing, “forgetting to encash” , “blaming the courier/system” etc. Technique seems to be similar – delay the cheque encashment. Personally I have been stung by it in HSBC and ABN AMro lately. HSBC card I have cut off. The process was cathartic to say the least – I pre-paid the money, they denied having recieved the cheque, confirmation was done through courier firm(where we found the cheque was carried and deposited into black hole). They did not deposit the cheque for almost 20 days and later on system generated message reaches me threatening with consequences of not paying or paying late complete with  late charges. I question the same and share the cheque information, they deny having it, I share there own pick up(skypack reciept). It goes on till they say they have found the cheque with incomplete details and that is why they did not deposit it. Wow ! – what was incomplete – hmm name was not present. I look at my copy of the cheque – everything seems allright. But what the heck – I ask for latest charges including late and ask to be cancelled. I call up 6 times to cancel the credit card, every time I am promised somebody will call up to get the reason and cancel. It does not happen and in between I again get another letter of not having paid the amount. I call up with new reference, One person says my credit is closed and shows x amount credited extra(i have basically paid extra). another person responds saying they have not recieved anything at all . In the end – I record the call and keep it handy for you never know when they can reopen the account and create another fraud. I wonder what kind of CIO/IT systems these folks run (I was under the impression only government banks can be so bad).

ABN-AMRO is presently contesting they have not recieved the cheque dated 14th June for 9000 Rs and gone ahead and charged me extra amount. I am trying to see how can I survive without the credit card as I did 2 years ago to live a sedate, peaceful life.

Back from vacation

Bunch of things to be updated soon with content

1) Why should state bank monopolize the “pensions” disbursal of retired government employees with reference to following points

   a)  Service(sic) to old retired, widowed or chronic patient customers

   b)  Should bank employees question how much money the pensioner is taking with them

2)  National highway NH4 driving experience

   a) lack of updated road condition content

    b) lack of road == ineffectiveness of NHAI ( epitome of inefficiency and bad quality construction between hubli – ranebennur – R N Shetty (RNS) and friends have created mess of implementation compared to dream drive between honaga(Belgaum) to Kagal (Kolhapur) done by Punj Llyod. RN Shetty hopefully does not complete another temple as atonement for corruption and bad quality roads elsewhere.

3) Agriculture becoming more and more infeasible for small farmers

  a) loans becoming scarce and not reaching to right people

  b) half of the loans/benefits reaching the “relatives” of officials in the government scheme (pick any scheme) – saw personal view of city dweller having 50*80 land + acres of land elsewhere getting loan for landless + other sad things.

4) Honda city driving review

  a) bad - side view blocked , fuel efficie

  b) handling superb,  

5) Travelling

Cost of Toll – 265 Rs – Bangalore to Belgaum – Kolhapur – Belgaum – Gadhinglaj – Bangalore

(includes extra cost of unwanted travel to fill “reliance” petrol).

Cost of Gas -

6,900 Rs.

Distance

- 576 km from home at bsk 2nd stage to Belgaum mm extn home.  – 11.45 hrs with 4 stops of 40 mins each

- 587 km from home at Gadhinglaj to Bangalore mm extn home.  9.30 hrs with 2 stops of 40 min each

Adding new folks

After visiting non0science (nOnoScience) (via Suhasini) for few times I have decided to put him into the blogroll as the writing is witty, diverse and has more depth. I finished reading Stephen Few. After waiting for Tufte’s book I went through this book which criticized modern “dashboards”,  reports presentation and came out with winning colors wrt to dashboard information presentation. I needed something like this for long time after being frustrated with loads of  data and lack of good representation techniques. So hopefully in the current project we will be able to come up with better looking, more impactful dashboard which can provide insight.

Via nOnoscience - I picked up Mohan’s site which provided John Hick’s enjoyable paper on Web Typography. I found wonderful chart from Stephan Few’s site with good way of presenting information.  

Good smiles of the week follow

1. Somehow I have stumbled on balancing life and had the heartiest laugh in long time. Very -2 nicely written and invokes all the memories of the ncc camp.

2. Situational vegetarian habits  had me in split. I concur – no logic suffices in most situations. Post on Rahman - bring back the similar memories – actually I always maintained the doubts about Rahman till Guru Sridhar made me listen to May maadham about sometimes crappy work like ” Rukumani Rukumani” (think of Mani rathnam picturising it)”. I guess the translated Hindi lyrics turned out to be the most unthinkable I had heard to date in those days.