Srinivas's space

I had attended Part I of Art of Living classes last week.  I would like to share my views on this class.

Our instructor is really good at teaching AOL Part I, she is a physician by profession but very committed for AOL.  I am guessing she is over 60 years old, quite energetic and charming.  I was very much impressed by her dedication and commitment towards teaching AOL and helping people to live happier life.  I attended evening classes at Times of India building in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.  They charge nominal 1,000 Rupees to raise funds towards number of charitable programs AOL conducts to uplift the poor.  I believe AOL teachers are volunteers; they primarily get involved because of their belief in AOL, enormous respect to H.H. Pundit Shri Ravi Shankar guruji.  It is their way of making contribution towards social service.

AOL Part I teach Yoga, Pranayama, Sudharsana Kriya and philosophies of AOL and some of Gurudev’s teachings.  I am totally impressed by physiological aspects of AOL Part I.  I am not too much into spirituality so I couldn’t respect teachings related to mythology and spirituality.  Sudharasana Kriya is a powerful technique to energize whole body and help you to gain total peace and tranquility.  They teach special breathing technique called “Ujjayani breathing”, combining Yoga and Pranayama with proper breathing technique can bring enormous health & fitness benefits.  In addition, AOL recommends doing a 10 minute Sudharshan Kriya (short-kriya) on daily basis and long kriya on weekly basis.  Sudharshan long kriya takes about an hour, usually you have to go to AOL follow-up centers to do it.  Long kriya is so powerful, AOL advises not to do it more than once a week.  I can honestly say Sudharshan Kriya in conjunction with Pranayama and Yoga can keep you away from doctor!!! 

Of course, AOL also suggests sticking to vegetarian diet specially Saatwick diet.  Saatwick diet includes consumption of natural foods like sprouts, fruits, vegetables, nuts etc. without any spices, garlic or onion.  I have not given up meat but I have certainly cut-down the consumption and increased intake of natural foods on daily basis.  I do feel the difference when I eat simple food and stick to daily routine of Yoga, Pranayama and Sudarshan Kriya.

Based on my experience, I am encouraging my wife to attend AOL Part I classes in August.  I am sure we will continue to incorporate AOL teachings in our daily fitness routine. As far as mythology, we are far from praying any living human being and certainly not interested in knowing our past life, life after death and/or reincarnation.  We are all about making the most out of the life we already have and we truly believe in - “Life is Beautiful”.

Akil School had an adventure camp to Munnar so Sudha & I thought of going on vacation to Munnar as well.  Oakridge International School hired Kalypso Adventures to put together a week long adventure camp for 10^th grade kids.  Once you take-out train and bus travel time between Hyderabad and Munnar, it was only 4 night adventure camp.  Club Mahindra has a fine resort in Munnar so we took this opportunity to visit Akil’s adventure camp as well as visit Munnar to beat-out Hyderabad’s scorching heat for a few days.

Like any other hill stations, you can’t avoid road trip on the Ghat Road.  We flew into Coimbatore and rented a taxi to Munnar, its about 5 hours drive.  Kalypso Adventure Camp is located near Marayur, they set-up tents for Oakridge kids.  They had separate tents for girls and boys; they did a pretty decent job of selecting the camp site surrounded by thick forest, it is about 500 meters away from the main road so campers can enjoy Mother Nature at its purest!  Once we reached Marayur we called Captain Sam of Kalypso and they arranged a jeep to take us to the camp site.  When we reached the Camp site, Akil and his friends were playing team sports ranging from creative performances, team challenges, puzzles, skits, improvising acts etc.  We walked around the camp site and watched their activities for a couple of hours, it brought back fond memories of my Himalayan Trekking experience.  Captain Sam and his team were very kind, they were good hosts.  We loved the time we spent with the kids and left the camp site just before dark.  Captain Sam wanted us to stay back and watch end of the day tug-of-war contest and have dinner with them, we did not want to take chance with driving on the ghat road in the night. 

Club Mahindra resort is located 15 K.M away from Munnar; the resort is surrounded by 100+ year old tea plantation.  Munnar is the home of tea estates, thick forests, spice gardens, beautiful hills, scenic waterfalls and valleys.  Usually we stay in cottages but this time we were given a hotel room at the resort.  Frankly, the hotel room has contemporary décor and tasteful interior.  Although they offered a room with beautiful view of the valley, tea estates and hills, I wished they actually had a small balcony to enjoy the panoramic view with morning coffee!  We also checked out their cottages, though cottages are spacious the interior work was not appealing.  We were pleasantly surprised to know that the resort is 15+ years old; they do seem to take care of the property very well.  We stayed at Club Mahindra resorts in Kodai Kanal and Coorg in the past.  I must say Coorg resort is the best and Kodai resort is the worst.  In general, I am happy with Club Mahindra timeshare plan.  If you don’t have Club Mahindra membership they charge anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 Rupees per night for their hotel/cottage rooms.  Although we had paid steep upfront fees towards the timeshare, I can’t imagine spending that kind of money and taking vacations if we have to shell out each time.  If you are planning to go on quality vacations on an annual basis, you should seriously consider taking Club Mahindra membership.  Personal disclosure:  I have no financial interests with Club Mahindra.

The resort has two restaurants and a bar & grill.  One restaurant offers alacarte menu whereas the other restaurant pretty much offers large buffets.  Club Mahindra offers value for money all inclusive daily rate for breakfast/lunch/dinner buffet option.  This is one thing I don’t like about their resorts, people pile-up at the buffet tables.  Club Mahindra should learn from Cruise ships on how well they can organize the dining experience and avoid  large buffets.  Instead they should promote healthy and family friendly dining experience.  Kerala cuisine typically consists of heavy usage of Coconut oil or milk, which didn’t suit our taste buds.  After trying one day of buffet option, we pretty much stuck to room service and alacarte menu.  Room service is really good; in general service at the resort is exceptional.  Thanks to general elections in Kerala, they had three days of dry days leading to the polling day.  I didn’t have as much alcohol as I would when we normally go on vacation.

Honeymoon Travels…..

Club Mahindra coordinates several sight tours including Night Safaris, Spice Garden tour, Munnar sightseeing, boat ride in Tekkady etc.  In addition, they have pretty decent indoor activity center with family-friendly activities like  painting, art work, ping-pong table, air hockey, computer center, caroms and other board games.  In the evenings, they have special programs like Disco, Magic Show etc. at the activity center. 

As a matter of fact, for Sudha and me, it was our first vacation as a couple without Akil, family and/or friends.  You can call it our honeymoon after 16 years of marriage!!  Like a typical NRI arranged marriage, we got married within a two week span – from engagement to wedding; then obtaining passport, visa etc took rest of my time-off when we got married.  One day I will make a short-film about infamous Indian arranged marriages!  Arranged marriage is very similar to on-line dating; you actually build a profile and match your interests/aspirations to the potential partner.  On-line dating services replicate the process of arranged marriage system, which is very much empirical.  Feelings of the heart or emotions have little or no relevance to the wedding. 

I had spent nearly one and a half month in India when we got married which is longer compared to folks who come down here for a two week break and get married in a Vegas style drive-thru wedding.  One more fact, I did not have much money to go on a quality honeymoon destination.  Once she joined me in the U.S, as all the best things happen unplanned, she became pregnant and we had Akil within a year and half of our marriage.  For all practical reasons, it was our honeymoon trip to Munnar.

We reached Club Mahindra Lakeview resort in Munnar by 7:00 P.M.  Once we checked into our room, we went by the activity center to plan out sightseeing tours and activities.  We decided to go on half-day Munnar tour which includes Elephant ride, Speed Boat Ride and Flower Garden tour.  They arranged a mini-bus for the Munnar sightseeing tour, there were 19 folks including couple of children.   We gave strong feedback stating that they should change the mini-bus immediately to a comfortable A/C mini-van with lesser rattling sound on the ghat roads.  Over next few days, nine of us became good friends, four couples and one single NRI young lady.  We came to know this young lady, Tara, who is a medical graduate from Stanford University, presently getting ready for residency.  When you meet her in person, you wouldn’t know she is a Stanford Graduate, she is down-to-earth person with a bit of ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) personality.  Nine of us became such good friends that we started visiting cottages and even coordinating rest of the sightseeing tours.  It reminded me of a story from our high-school English written by R.K Narayan, how Indians are so gullible and make quick friends anywhere ranging from train journeys to movie theaters.  R.K Narayan talks about how he met a gentleman on a train journey and surprised to receive a basket full of mangos from this causal train-friend during summer season.

I started comparing five of the women in our group to women in Bollywood movie “Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd”, each woman has unique personality.  Demographically: young American-born desi girl, legally American middle-age woman, young Indian mom, culturally conservative yet emotionally modern South Indian mom, and another middle-aged Indian mom with grown-up kids.  My job was to observe personalities of these five women, of course Sudha is the middle-aged legally American mom.  The young lady is Tara, during our conversations she mentioned that she visits India almost every year or two but never was able to tour any places, so she decided to venture out on her own this time.  She also mentioned that she was pretty much a bookie/studious in her high-school which may be the reason she scored nearly perfect SAT score and got admitted into Stanford Medical College.  There is a lady from Chennai, her husband is almost a decade older than she is, and you can easily sense differences in their aspirations.  She came across as the character (Raima Sen) in “Honeymoon Travels” movie in which the lady wears saris and bindi against her modern and out-going nature just to please her husband.  This Chennai lady had similar personality.  She is definitely curious, social and adventurous whereas her husband is a quiet and serious personality.  In our mighty nine, the young couple also from Hyderabad, they had a naughty kid, he is only about 3 years old, hyper active and adorable.  He is definitely a handful for his mom to handle.  Oldest couple in our mighty nine was from Mumbai area, their daughter works as a R.J in Singapore and their son completed engineering.  We became very close to this couple, they also like to travel various places.  They have already traveled quite a few places in India.  The lady was also curious about all of us.  When she came to know that we lived abroad for more than 16 years, she said she guessed that we are not normal Indians, she got this idea from the way we spoke English and the way we behaved.  She also was curious if Sudha and I got married arranged or love.  She was surprised to know that we were arranged.  She thought ours was for sure a love-marriage, I am guessing she must have fallen for the PDA (public display of affection).  She also thought the other young couple from Hyderabad were not arranged, they said that they knew each other and they are close family relatives but they were also arranged.  I am for sure Chennai couple was arranged.  We all went to Tekkady adventure trip as well as three of us went for a short trekking.

As we were driving through small villages in Kerala, I noticed they have beautiful churches and you only find old/small temples.  In Andhra villages, you might find three or four temples, one mosque and one church whereas this ratio is pretty much in the reverse order in Kerala villages.  You will find more number of enormous churches than mosques or temples.  Hindus also successfully exported some of the bad habits to Indian Christians; they also started placing Crosses and small Jesus temples on the side or in the middle of the roads.  Several of our taxi drivers pray as we drive by these churches or small temples with Jesus. 

Tekkady is about 4 hours drive from our resort, we took the mini-bus to reach Tekkady by lunch time.  We had lunch at the Kerala tourism restaurant (KTDC) and went on 2 hours boat ride to enjoy wilderness by the river.  Since it was a hot summer afternoon, although we enjoyed the boat ride we only saw deer and bison on this boat safari.  Predictably, the Chennai couple had two children: one boy and one girl.  These little kids were anxious to see the wild life.  Unfortunately there was not much for us to see so kids were a bit disappointed, instead they started enjoying bird-watching on the boat ride.  Chennai lady mentioned she does not work but helps her husband with his business.  I concluded that she does not like to be a stay-home mom but she may not have much choice!

Tekkady is famous for spices and herbs.  After a fairly disappointing boat ride, we decided to check out Spice Garden tour before we head back to the resort.  I must say Spice Garden tour was another highlight of the trip.  It is a small 7 acre spice garden; they charged a steep 100 Rupees per head for the tour.  I guess they can make pretty good money from the tours rather than yields from the plantation itself.  Our spice garden tour guide, Cyrus is pretty knowledgeable of spices, herbs and ayurvedic plants.  He was quite articulate in explaining about various plants, how to grow them, seeding, extraction, timeline, usage etc.  This tour reminded me of “Watch Museum” tour in Zurich, Switzerland.  As soon as I had walked into this small 400 SFT Watch Museum I was pissed that they had charged 6 or 7 dollars for the tour.  Once the tour guide explained watch making craft, history, and significance of various watches – it was quite interesting and the price was way worth the visit.  Similarly, spice garden tour was way worth visiting considering how well our guide explained.  As expected, our diversified group of women bought spices & herbs as much as they could (whether we consume them or not is another story!).  Fat people get sucked in for any fat loss gimmick; Cyrus showed some kind of a bark which can help lose weight.  He also claimed that he lost over 15 KG weight himself by soaking a piece of this bark in a glass of water and drinking it in the morning.  This is all you have to do to melt-off the weight.  I always have trouble with my weight so I couldn’t resist buying some of this stupid bark.  By the way, I am using it everyday, I will know if it has any effect on my weight in about 3 months.  My wife, being a medical doctor, thinks it is utter non-sense but fat people never give up on any opportunity they get to lose weight!! 

We returned to the resort by 9:00 P.M and had a simple dinner at the restaurant.  Dry days continued ahead of the national elections so we couldn’t enjoy drinking.

Sudha, I and the guy from Mumbai went on a short-trek in the morning, our tour guide made this 7 K.M trek enjoyable.  It took less than 3 hours but we thoroughly enjoyed walking through tea-estates and forest area by the small water fall.  Once we returned back to the resort, I went to the nearby village to get an authentic Kerala massage to sum-up our vacation.  Kerala massage is the same everywhere, too oily and rubbing the entire body like scrubbing a fish.  After lunch, Sudha and I wanted to try adventure sports such as River Crossing, Rappelling at the resort.  Unfortunately, we had rain so we couldn’t try out these activities.  We spent sometime at the family activity center which has pool table, foosball, caroms, air hockey, ping-pong, children’s arts & crafts, board games, internet access etc.  In the evening, Sudha and I went for a long walk to the nearby village.  As we were reaching the resort, we met our friends.  They went to another sightseeing tour to Tamilnadu & Kerala border; they said it was perhaps the best tour of the entire trip.  Mountain region at the border, I believe it was simply superb, we missed it out.  Our friends from Mumbai (actually Thane) invited us to their cottage for drinks.  We went to their cottage, as I mentioned before it was spacious but didn’t have tasteful décor so I would suggest anyone to opt for hotel rooms at Munnar Club Mahindra resort rather than cottages.  After a couple of drinks, four of us had dinner at the restaurant.  We invited all of our friends to visit our room.  We spent good 2 to 3 hours chatting in our room.  Indians are not worried so much about the privacy or security issues.  We just met all of these strangers 3 or 4 days back, we had no problem sharing our phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other personal details.  In general, we Indians do not suspect strangers as Americans do.  It is also true; you can easily socialize with similar socio-economic background people in India without having to fear of privacy or security.  By far, India has less number of freaks and perverts than you hear about in the west.  I always tell my American friends who visit India, you can walk anywhere in Hyderabad pretty safely without worrying about any life-threatening issues, the worst that can happen would be pick-pocketing or being cheated by street vendors or auto drivers for a few extra bucks.  Of course, rules are the same for women anywhere in the world, you need to be safe, thoughtful and don’t take unnecessary chance with strangers!  You can park your car by the curb; I am almost 90% certain no one will break into it and steal stereo system or cell phone.  I am almost certain if you park your car in Houston downtown overnight, most likely someone will break-in. 

All of us were planning to check-out next day other than the couple from Mumbai.  They were going to be there for another 3 days, they were a bit down to miss all of us since we became good friends within a short duration.  You can easily enjoy 3 to 4 days of visit in Munnar.  If you have more time you can try night safari.  You need at least couple of extra days to try night safari because you need a day to recover from previous sleepless night.

Munnar is simply god’s gift of amazing Mother Nature with lush tea estates, thick forest, wilderness and beautiful mountain range.  Next day morning, we rented a taxi back to Coimbatore.  On the way to Coimbatore, we passed thru Chinnar Forest Reserve; it is famous for Sandalwood trees and Jack fruit trees.  Lot of tourists go to Chinnar area for night safari to watch Tigers, Elephants and Cheetahs.  We reached Coimbatore around 3:00 P.M, so decided to check out Coimbatore city, it is the second largest city in Tamilnadu.  Coimbatore is famous for textile industry and educational institutions, it has pretty decent basic infrastructure such as wide roads, flyovers, traffic system, underground drainage system etc..  We enjoyed evening snack at Coimbatore’s landmark restaurant called “Annapurna” and reached to the airport.  Coimbatore airport is similar in size to Visakhapattanam airport; it is also maintained by Airport Authority of India so you can’t use toilets without closing your nose.  In India the difference between airports managed by Airport Authority of India vs. private companies such as GVK or GMR is usability of toilets, seating in the waiting areas and overall cleanliness.  Of course, these private companies hit us with steep user charges!  You get what you pay for !!

Well the fairytale is over - we are planning to return back to the U.S within a year.  Akil will complete his 10^th grade in India, and then we will move back to the U.S.  Meanwhile Sudha has started searching for a job, as soon as she gets a good job she will move back and plan for transition.  Of course, we love to get back to Houston area if she can get a job there!  Appreciate any job referrals for Internal Medicine Physicians.

Many of my good friends know, only one goal I have is to see India as a “developed nation”…I wish to make a tangible contribution towards realization of this dream…this is the one and only reason we moved to India – unfortunately, it will remain  an unaccomplished goal.  Therefore, at least I want to make sure Sudha and Akil are happy doing whatever they like, so I have decided to move back to the U.S.

My last day at Microsoft is going to be June 26, 2009.  I had tried to retire from full-time employment back in 2001, then again in 2005.  Hopefully, third time is charm and I will retire for good.  This time it’s a bit different from my earlier efforts, the retirement option came to me, I didn’t ask!

As part of preparation for the transition, we put our house on sale.  If you know of any potential buyers, please let us know.  We will sell our house for 2 Crores (little over $400K).  We could have easily sold the same house for a higher price last year, real estate market conditions are slightly different now, so we are comfortable to sell the house for 2 Crores (fixed  price) . We will donate 20-25% of proceeds from our house sale to an NGO or set-up a Research Foundation.

A few unfinished matters to take care of before we move back to the U.S:

• I will try to write and publish a book (Of course it is about “India”)
• Had a chance to act in a tiny role for a Telugu movie recently and look forward to doing a few more roles.
• Sell the house
• Set-up a foundation to promote “Research” – welcome any suggestions/ideas 
• Recently I had annual health check-up, thank god I am pretty healthy – will try to get fit as well!!!
• Travel as many places as we can in India