The above two photos provide the view of this banyan tree, as seen from the right side and left side of the viewing point (respectively). Tourists are allowed till this place and since the central trunk of this tree is not there, one can only see its offshoots all around the place.

You can see much better photos and a complete description about the Adyar Aala maram/ Adyar Banyan Tree from this blog page.

This is not exactly a tourist spot, but since I went there anyway, I came to know that there are people from around 55 countries, living in the campus of the Theosophical society. So, I became inquisitive about Theosophical society and Theosophy.

I got the below quotes from the website of Theosophical society:

“Members of the Theosophical society are united by a common search of truth and desire to learn the meaning and purpose of existence through study, reflection, self-responsibility and loving service”

“Theosophy offers a philosophy which renders life intelligible and demonstrates that justice and love guides the cosmos”

Many luminous personalities were involved with the Theosophical society, including Annie Besant, Jiddu Krishnamurti, George Arundale, etc.

According to Wikipedia, the Aims/ Ideals of the Theosophical Society are as follows:

1. To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour.

2. To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science.

3. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.

Well, that’s some philosophical search initiative, don’t you think? BTW, the Theosophical Society was started in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (among others) and one section of its headquarters moved to Adyar in Chennai by 1883.

Destination Infinity

I was quite unhappy that photography was not allowed in the Salar Jung Museum, to which I went before coming here. But then, this Chowmahalla Palace (Chowmahallat) more than quenched the visual thirst! Oh, what a treat this palace is to the eyes!!

Initially, I was quite skeptical about the entry ticket of 25 rupees and camera ticket of 50 rupees. This is the highest I have paid to take my camera anywhere till now, and I thought it better live up to the expectations.

And it did – In style!

It seems, Chowmahallat means ‘Four palaces’. This Chowmahalla palace complex began to be constructed in the late 18th Century and was completed by mid-19th century. This was once the center of Hyderabad city and was the seat of Asif Jahi dynasty. It was also the Nizam of Hyderabad’s official residence (and administrative complex). All the major events like Coronation of Kings/ receiving a state guest – dignitary, etc seems to have been held here.

If you are thinking about what could be better than luxury, you should look at the royal opulence and the grandeur of this palace! Take for instance, the Chandeliers shown below. I have just not seen bigger ones than them, at least recently!

Almost every object used by the Nizam’s were kept in display in this palace, and weren’t they grand Among others, you could find furniture, portraits, porcelain and other utensils, garments, etc. All, Royal Palacica!

Did I tell you about Cars? The yellow car shown below is a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost 1911 Model! The yellow body had gold mountings and various parts of the body, lights, roof, etc were finished in silver! It seems this car was used only for important occasions and has done just 356 miles in the last hundred years. No wonder! There was a good collection of other vintage car models, but I don’t have unlimited photo space in this page!

There were at least three rooms showcasing weapons and other metallic objects used by the Nizam’s. It seems the swords and other weapons were made to shape individually by specialist craftsmen, and it took a lot of skill to perfect the art.

The palaces themselves were just splendorous. To think that the staff maintaining them are working from one of them, makes me want to apply for a job there immediately

The clock tower shown below has been running for the last 250 years. Its a mechanical winding based clock and specialist clock mechanics have been maintaining it for many generations, it seems.

Did you notice the number of pigeons on the ground and even on the palace clock tower? I wish I could display more photos, but I have a self imposed restriction of 12 photos per blog post (max). No problem, I am sure you will want to visit it and see all the exorbitance for yourself, when you go to Hyderabad.

Destination Infinity

Tag: 7 random things about me -

• I believe in destiny. If I fail, its because of destiny only. If I succeed, its because of my own efforts only
• Generally, I have clear opinion on things. But, I can take both sides on a debatable topic and argue either way. In fact, some people talking to me have been quite confused as to which side I am taking, as I tend to speak for and against both sides at the same time!
• I can laugh at myself and I think that its a precious gift.
• I believe that what we consider our biggest strength, is actually our biggest weakness and vice-versa.
• I believe that our intelligence has been given to us in order to divert us from the actual reason of our existence.
• I can say something which doesn’t make much sense, and still make people think. Like the above two sentences
• I wonder why people design similar tags. This tag, for instance is so similar to this one I recently did!

Now I need to tag fifteen other bloggers (15? – Hmmmmm). Ok, all the bloggers who comment on this post can consider themselves to be automatically tagged

Destination Infinity

Salar Jung Museum is perhaps one of India’s largest and well maintained museums, and it is located in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. The collections kept in this museum are a treat to watch and a photographer’s delight, had photography been allowed inside the museum. Sadly, photography isn’t allowed inside! This museum even has a cafeteria and well maintained toilets. Its needed, because casual browsing takes 3-4 hours and if you want to read through information and go through the exhibits slowly, it will take 5-7 hours!

There are six galleries (each containing multiple rooms, each with a different theme), three in the ground floor and three in the first floor that are open for public viewing. There is even a multimedia presentation hall with two plasma TV’s and regular screenings are held at certain times of the day.

I thought the First Floor Eastern block was the most interesting (and visually pleasing) – There were four galleries here – Chinese Gallery, Japanese Gallery, Far Eastern Porcelain Gallery, Far Eastern Statuary Gallery. So, if you have only one hour – just visit this section.

Some useful information I gathered in this Museum:

• The earliest form of writing which has been properly deciphered, studied and interpreted (in India), is the script of the Mauryan period – Brahmi.
• Metalware was used in India from a very long time ago – One bronze figure of a dancing girl belonging to the 3rd Millennium BC was recovered intact from Harappa excavation.
• Commonly used metals in Ancient India were copper, brass (alloy of copper and zinc) and bell-metal (alloy of copper and tin)
• Earliest surviving examples containing works in silver-ware and precious metals (in the Indian sub-continent) dates back to 50 years before Christ. They were found in a Buddhist site near Jalalabad, present-day Afghanistan.
• Even though silver is/was expensive, at one point of time in India, even the eating plates of the middle class families were made of silver.
• Buddhism was officially recognized in China, as early as 1st Century AD. Along with Buddhism, Taoism (whose followers worship nature and mysticism) formed the mainstream religions of China.
• The word Samurai in Japanese means ‘Military retainer’. Samurai, as a class, came into existence from the eleventh century in Japan with the weakening of the imperial Govt and rise of warrior chief’s in provinces who recruited people who were known for their physical courage and prowess. The Samurai’s were known for their fierce loyalty to the master and also as peerless warriors who used to consider the sword as their soul. The Samurai tradition in Japan lasted from 11th Century AD to as late as 1868 AD.
• Chinese blue and white porcelain is the most famous (and most widely adapted) porcelain in the world. It combines the porcelain technology (which was discovered in China around 7th Century) and monochrome painting on porcelain with bold and colorful brush work.
• Miniature paintings were quite popular in India (between 15th and 20th centuries). They were smaller paintings done on palm leaves/ paper that are not hung on walls but held in hand to observe keenly.
• A type of Chinese ceramics that were called Celadon-ware, were quite popular because they were believed to possess  the property of detecting food poisoning by splitting or breaking when they came into contact with poisonous food. It was later found that there was no scientific basis for such a belief and perhaps people who brought Celadon-ware purposefully spread the belief in order to dissuade prospective poisoners.

Destination Infinity

Guindy Children’s park and Chennai Snake Park are a part of the Guindy National Park campus. They are a small extension of it, and is open to tourists. I guess the Guindy National park itself is a protected area and requires prior permission for tourists to visit, and it is one of the few national parks located within a major city in India. In case you don’t want to read everything below, just have a look at the above embedded short movie (1 min & 34 sec) I made on this place, to get an idea of what you can find here.

The Guindy Children’s park and Chennai Snake park are located in the same campus but have separate entrances. They are located just before the entry to Adyar/ OMR in the Sardar Patel Road, right next to Cancer Institute and IIT, Madras.

If you expect your experience to be similar to other national parks, where the animals are freely roaming around and you go around in a mobile vehicle (bus, van, etc), you’ll be disappointed! The Guindy Children’s park is more like a zoo than a national park! Most of the animals/ birds are kept inside cages, just like a zoo.

But there is one bigger enclosure (with a net on the top) where a lot of birds were kept and there was enough space for the birds to move around. Perhaps the enclosure was as big as 25 meters x 15 meters, if I remember it right. There was even a small pond in the center of this enclosure, where some of the birds were gladly swimming.

There is one more positive aspect – The spotted deer’s were freely roaming around the park! The deers were cool about people interacting with it and taking pictures. I saw one deer even in the parking lot! I wish the other animals were outside the cage too, and people could move around the park in a closed bus/ van. Its a good deal for both – think about it!

The play area, lawn and garden are very good and are being maintained quite neatly as well. The whole place is filled with rich fauna and there are so many varieties of trees/ plants/ shrubs where ever you look. There is a canteen just outside this park and some snacks are available there.

The Chennai snake park is just next to the Guindy children’s park campus but there is a separate entrance for this. There are two things you can expect to see here – Lot of snakes and lot of crocodiles (alligators).

There was one thing that was strangely common with all the crocodiles / alligators – They were not moving at all! At one place, I waited for a couple of minutes and one crocodile finally moved. Even the above crocodile with its mouth open was still for over a couple of minutes when I stood there, clicking its photo!

There is one chameleon in the above photo, which I was not able to identify even from three feet distance! This photo was taken after zooming from that close range. It seems there were four chameleon’s in this cage and there was a board challenging visitors to spot all of them. No, I was not able to!

Of course, there were a lot of snakes in this place, as well. After all, this was a Snake park. Perhaps the best exhibit of this park was its modern interactive center with many visual exhibits (pictures with back-lighting and videos on LCD monitors). That makes one wonder, if that is not enough? Why enclose animals, reptiles and birds inside cages when even jungles can be brought inside home (through TV/ Internet).

I wish more interactive centers replace zoos and cages very soon. Or at least, the animals and birds could be left in a protected natural surroundings where they are free to roam around and we could go through the premises in a closed bus or van. Its very much possible to do that in this place because there were no carnivorous animals (except the crocodiles) at all!

Destination Infinity

‘What’s your hobby?’

‘Reading books and listening to music’

Was my standard reply. But I was having a few problems with this approach. First, teachers used to ask so many students and almost all of them told the same thing. So, when the chance came to me, they suddenly become vexed with the answer and tell, ‘Don’t tell me the same thing’!!

Even if they did accept it, they immediately ask me who my favorite author was. At that age I was reading only Tin Tin and I had no clue that any book could have an author Of course I was well versed in Tinkle, but someone else said the same thing and got scoldings! So, comics were out and I had not started reading Famous Five’s and Secret Seven’s (yet).

Music was even worser. Some teacher asked me what my favorite genre in music was (What a question to ask a 5th standard student? Ask me now, I will still blink ). I used to reply, ‘Illayaraja?’ and the whole class would start laughing. As if they had any idea about genre’s! Knowledge about what was wrong and when everyone could laugh together was at a high level in my school!

I was not yet adept enough to imagine some different hobbies that I could say. During my sixth standard, I decided enough was enough and asked my friend to give me some ideas about new hobbies. He told me to say ‘Coin collection’ and he would say ‘Stamp collection’.

Suddenly teachers started looking at me in a different light. They said, ‘Good. Keep it up’. I was stumped. Was this such a premium hobby or what? My interest in these hobbies increased instantly!

It started with coin collection. Actually currency. (Foreign coins and currency, not Indian).

One of my friends had a big Singapore Currency (1 Dollar) with him and I got it from him (Don’t remember what I gave in exchange). Currency, it seems, was in demand among the coin collectors. Since I had one, I was accepted as a coin collector at school!

Since we were living in flats, I had quite a number of friends around there and some of them had a few coins as well. So, I started exchanging coins with anyone who would want to.

That’s what coin collectors do – Exchange coins. A typical conversation will go like this,

‘I have one Australia. What can you give me for it’

‘Australia is not so rare, I can give you two Singapore or two England’

‘No, this is a big coin’

‘Ok, one Singapore and one UAE?’

‘I still think its not a fair deal. See, I have a rare coin – CCCP (Russia). What can you give for this?’

‘Two Singapore (coins) and one Nepal Currency?’

‘Not a bad deal’

We were speaking business back then people! One rare coin can fetch two or more easy  (to get) coins or another rare coin. So, we exchanged these coins with each other sometimes to grow the number of coins, sometimes to get a currency, sometimes to get a different coin collection, etc.

But the most important reason was to show-off (and of course, to answer teachers/ neighbors).

Wasn’t it fun? Of course, it was. A couple of guys from another class suddenly come to my class during break and ask to see me. We used to discuss for a few minutes and when I get back to my place my friends would ask, ‘What did you discuss with them?’. I would reply, ‘Oh, its about exchanging foreign coins we have’. And they used to go, ‘Wow’

Stamp collection was not as exciting. That was because almost all the stamps were bought from a shop and we used to stick it in a stamp collection notebook. Almost everyone were doing this and there was not much scope for exchanging them (though it did happen rarely).

So, we lost interest in stamp collection soon. In fact, I even gave my whole stamp book (with a lot of stamps) to a friend in my 9th Standard for free. But I never parted with my coins. Yeah I did search for them when writing this article, but was not able to find them. But I know its somewhere in the house! Or isn’t it? Not sure!

A lesson that should have been learned back then was somehow missed – We always cherish and are proud of something that we earned/ worked hard to get. But what we buy/ get without efforts don’t have the same importance (except maybe for a few initial days). In my case, it did not/ does not have any importance at all.

Destination Infinity

The above solitary structure in the center of this beach is called as the Karl Schmidt memorial. It is named so in the honor of a Dutch sailor who lost his life while saving a drowning swimmer in this beach (long time back). Of course, this memorial is not in its best shape (its pretty much broken from all sides), but maybe that adds a bit of romanticism to it!

Earlier, this beach was relatively free of vendors, but looks like there are many shops at some places in this beach too. The sundal (with mango pieces), roasted corn and various bajji’s are very popular in Chennai beaches, but now all kind of eateries are available. I even saw a baloon shooting game (seen only in Marina beach earlier). This beach is mostly visited by families and its located in a relatively posh region of Chennai.

There are some important landmarks around this beach as well. The Velankanni Church (smaller one is in Chennai, larger one is in Velankanni town) and Ashtalakshmi Temple are very famous landmarks nearby. There is also a Planet Yum (which is an assortment of various eateries) and various other restaurants/ coffee shops/ garment shops surrounding this beach. There is a mini lane along this beach and a two lane road outside it. If you go through the Theosophical society road, the journey will be as good as the destination

This time, I have made a small movie (video – 40 sec) of Besant Nagar (Elliot’s) beach in Chennai. Any suggestions for improvement are welcome in the comments section. Below is the embedded Youtube video for the same.

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One needs to enter the beach through a narrow lane (going down) filled with a lot of shops / resorts on both sides. It seems this beach is famous for its ayurvedic treatments. The sand in this beach has an ash colour for the most part!

It seems there are three beaches in this beach complex which are separated by rocky enclaves. We walked through the first one and then went over the rocks for the view. The view from the rocks and the splashing of the water is the best part of this beach!

People can stay in the resorts around this beach, if they want to. It seems this beach was made popular by the Hippies visiting India during 1970′s. It seems there are many tourists coming here from Europe and Israel. I didn’t go into the waters, but there seems to be a long stretch of shallow waters here, which makes it a good place for swimming.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the readers of this Blog a very happy and prosperous New Year – 2012

Destination Infinity

I remember the students whipping some frenzy – Some of them said that they give ropes and we will be trained to climb up the school building! Some of them said that the certificate is very valuable and it will help us get good jobs/ get into the army, etc. Since we had no idea what it was, we thought it was some fun activity and enrolled anyway.

I think the NCC dress (khakis), belts, cap, shoes (boots, actually) and everything else was given by the Government to all the kids participating in the program. Of course, we were thrilled! We were also told that we would be given food on one day (of the two days  per week it was conducted). We didn’t know the price we were going to pay for freebies, back then!

One army person (I am not sure of his rank) was selected to train the cadets of our school. So, we were supposed to assemble in the play ground after school and he will start the drill. Drill consisted of only one activity – March past! That was the only activity we got to engage for the entire two years that it was conducted! And that instructor was very very strict, to say the least!

What I don’t understand is, at least we didn’t know about the program and enrolled in it. But what made our juniors enroll? They should have pretty much known what was about to come! Anyway, that is not the point of this post. After about a year and a half of drills, we were told that we need to attend one mandatory NCC camp.

Again, innocently we were thrilled! After all, it was ten days outside home and perhaps we might be able to go for trekking, gun shooting, rope-climbing (yeah, we never stopped hoping for that) and all other such fun activities! It took only one day for the reality to dawn on us.

We had to stay in tents on the ground, there were no shops / no signs of any other human activity at least for a radius of five kilometers, the food/ bathrooms were hopeless, we were staying in a ground that was surrounded by dense trees and we were warned against going near the trees because sometimes there were some snakes there!

We had to wake up at 5:00 AM everyday, exercise for one and a half hours, take bath, eat breakfast, participate in some drill related activities (yeah, the same march past ), eat lunch, take up an allocated activity for our school (ranging from pistol shooting to community service – cleaning, bringing water, etc), take rest in the evenings, participate in what was called cultural programs in the late evenings (where students were required to perform some cultural activities, mainly for the amusement of the military officers), eat dinner and sleep. We were strictly instructed not to go out of our camps in the nights.

This was a shocker for us because we were expecting the camping to be something like 10 day theme park enjoyment experience! We were obviously shocked because we were exposed to living in the natural environment for the first time – Away from the comforts of our home! A lot of us (me) got home sick. I even wrote one letter to my parents asking them to come and see me These kind of negative-tone letters were not supposed to go to  parents, but mine somehow did! Maybe it was slightly positive They came on the seventh day to see me. But by that time, I was feeling much better and more adjusted.

My biggest problem was the food. I just hated whatever was provided. But since we were very hungry after those tedious drill sessions, we somehow started eating them fully after the third day or so. Yeah, for the first three days, I was not even able to eat! By the seventh day, when my parents actually came, I was already adjusted to the food! At least, it was no more a problem.

Of course, we had some fun moments also – We had that pistol-shooting session, for which we were waiting for such a long time! In the name of trekking (we ‘climbed’ a flat-land actually!), we went out with some senior NCC cadets (from college), who on seeing our plight stopped our vehicle in a town nearby and we bought some biscuits / drank some cool drinks. That cool drink tasted delicious that day!

By the end of the tenth day when we came out of the camp, our instructor teasingly asked if we wanted to stay for ten more days and we said, ‘Why not?’ Sure, the experience was harrowing but we learned a surprising fact that given some time, humans can adapt to any situation. That learning, and the confidence it gave us to face difficult situations in life, is priceless!! Add to it, the discipline that those rigorous NCC drills inculcated into us.

Destination Infinity

The museum complex is itself like a huge palace and its surrounded by a botanical garden. The museum building had a very interesting construction and hence I was more than enthusiastic to click away some photos of it.

You can read more about this museum from here. In this post, I just want to show the photos I took from outside the museum.

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PS: You can view a photo of this Napier Museum taken in 1900 by Zacharias D’Cruz from here. Thanks to Rajani for passing this info in the comments section.