If I walk up to anyone and say that I love street running in Bangalore, people must think I’m crazy! But the fact is that by changing your strategy you can also love running on the streets.

I asked myself how come I love running on the streets and others don’t. I figured I was doing a few things differently.

• Running in residential areas:

Avoid main road when you can. If you are running random and don’t care to do a loop  it is best to run on small roads. Here is an example of my run around Padmanabhanagar. You  can see on google maps that there is only a few spots I hit the main roads (roads shown in yellow). I run mostly in the residential areas and small roads (roads shown in white). You can go from one area to the other by doing this, once in a while you might hit a main road, but find the next cross road as soon as possible.

What I love about running in the residential areas/small roads is that there are quite a number of trees around you. And all the houses look so different. Every house in Bangalore has its own charm in the way it is built. Some are colorful, some are built big, some are small and cozy. I keep myself entertained looking at all this.

• When you hit the main road stay to your right:

I feel this is very important to see a head on traffic than traffic behind you for two reasons, 1. You hear less honks. People in India honk so that the other person knows they are coming. 2. It is safer to see head on traffic so that you can move around looking at the vehicles.

But yes… most important thing is to find the next small road and get into it!

• Music helps

Music has always made me stay in my own world while running. I listen to a lot of podcasts / audio books while running. This can make you run a couple of extra miles.

These are the top three things that I do that makes a difference. I’m sure the other runners will have more points, do comment your experiences so that this helps other runners. Let us make street running a culture in Bangalore!

My wife and I took part in this event. Click here to read her experience.

The event was held at the NICE road starting at the Bangalore International exhibition.

It was fun to see Raghu Dixit perform at the show.

We had a lot of fun cheering…

Our cycling route: click here. I took 59min for 26.5KM. Hope to beat this next time.

Click here to see all pictures of the event.

What I love about this route is the bangalore-mysore road stretch. Lot of this road is incomplete which makes it a great route for mountain biking We took a small deviation at Uttarahalli towards subramanyapuram, this is a great route for cycling. There is no traffic, no pollution.

The best thing I like is the way google map shows exactly the way bangalore-mysore road is! It just ends at once!

Three cheers to Garmin GPS

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 Here are a few things that I tried my hands. Might be worth giving it a shot!

1. Traffic and noise

When I came back from the US the first striking thing that hits you is the honking. When you sit down and think for min about honking it is very interesting. Honking has different meanings in different countries. In US it means – “Dude you are making a mistake watch out”, and in India it means – “Dude watch out I’m coming, give way”. How can we make a difference in the noise levels of traffic. The first thing that I did is – “I NEVER HONK IN BANGALORE”. When I first said this, most of them say it is not possible. I’d say it is. If you think about yourself while driving then you have to honk. If you think about others while driving and yield, you will never need to honk. I’d say take this up as a challenge and make a difference!

2. Garbage on the street

There are a few wonderful things that I learned in the west. One of them is not to litter. Most of us don’t know that we shouldn’t litter. If a small boy is given a chocolate, the first thing he does is he opens it and throws the wrapper down there. Why does this happen? We have never been taught not to litter on the streets. We don’t realize that we play a big role in the society and not just the Govt. My solution to this is: 1. I never litter any place. 2. If I see someone doing it and if he doesn’t look like a big guy, I give a BIG smile and say, sir please don’t litter the place!

3. People urinating in the city

It is very sad to see that urinating in public is legal but kissing in public is questionable! This is a hard one. There is no use in blaming people or the Govt. I’m really glad for Nirmala for installing so many public toilets in the city. But here we need a social movement to make a difference. If everyone of us object people who do it in a very polite way it just might work! The other day when I was running in lalbagh this guy was urinating right next to the public toilet!!! After he was done, I waked up to him and said – “Sir please use the toilet next time”. Don’t know if it helped, but I did my job.

 Again these are very small problems, might not even be considered as real life problems in India, but, the point is to act on every problem to make a difference.

 Germany rebuilt itself from ashes after the world war. If someone says it was the Govt alone, I’d disagree. I believe a country can do better only if people work towards the betterment. We as Indians should believe in our own people only then we can make a HUGE difference.

There are different types of rainwater harvesting. The one that I have done is putting the rain water back to the under ground water. Because of so many roads and houses, the rain water doesn’t go back to the ground anymore. It is mostly evaporated. 

To start with I first got some pipes, joints and some glue:

We were very lucky to have a well in our house. It was all about filtering the water a little bit and leave the water to the well.

Install the filter in the pipe. This will block all the leaves and other suspended particles from entering the well.

Cut the pipe as required…

Now put them together. Overall it was very easy for our house. Sometimes you might have to do a lot more.

I can now collect all the dirt here:

I love the fact that now all the rain water, water wasted while watering the plants, overflowing water from the roof tank will all go back to the ground water table.

I love the whole feeling. Folks… I request each one of you to do this / investigate in your own house. Feel free to write to me if you need any help. It is a simple weekend project and doesnt cost much. But it sure makes a BIG difference to the world! 

Bannerghatta National Park is situated 22 km south of Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The journey to the park takes nearly half an hour from Bangalore. This hilly place is the home for one of the richest natural, zoological reserves. The 25,000 acre (101 km²) zoological park makes this a major tourist attraction of Bangalore.

Having stayed in Bangalore for so many years I had never visited Bannerghatta National Park. In my previous attempt to this place, I ended up climbing a hill near that place.

The place reminded me of the movie Jurassic park. It was my first wild life safari!

We started off with the herbivour safari.

The Deers are so beautiful:

We saw a lot of bear’s. Some of them hiding and peeping at us.

One of the bear was climbing on our vehicle. I could capture it from the rear view mirror!

When I saw the lions and the tigers I didn’t feel so good any more. The concept of a safari is good, but these lions and tigers were fed ready food. So they seem like they didn’t have anything else to do in life other than just sit around. I wonder if it would be OK if they were allowed to hunt to keep their hunting skills alive.

Nevertheless they are such beautiful creatures.

You can view all the pictures here.

The legend has it that the surrounding area of the temple, known as Sunkenahalli was cultivated for groundnut. A bull started grazing in the well-grown groundnut crop, at this, a farmer got furious and hit the bull with a club. Immediately the bull sat down becoming motionless and was transformed into a stone. Poor farmers were left stun and felt guilty. For their repentance they decided to build a temple for the bull, to their surprise the bull was growing in height. The worried farmer then prayed to Lord Shiva who advised them to redeem a trident buried a few feet away from the bull and place the trident on the forehead of the stone statue to stop it from growing. Farmers followed the Lord’s advice and the bull stopped growing. Still one can see the trident place on bull’s forehead.
Since then farmers offer their first crop of groundnut to the bull. The farmer’s hold a Groundnut fair known as Kadalekayi Parishe, near the temple premises every year, to show their thankfulness. It is one of the worth visiting places in Bangalore.

I studied in B.M.S. College of Engineering which is right across the Bull temple, and I had never been to this festival.

When I reached the place, I could see lots of stalls around. Huge piles of groundnuts and people selling them.

Some places they were selling a lot of different things that looked so beautiful and colorful.  I asked one of the lady what it was and she told me it was some kind of sweet.

The whole place was lit up and everyone were enjoying and having a good time.

When I looked around more I could see why they call India so colourful!

There was a guy drawing Lord Hanuman on the road. He had done a great job.

I had fun talking to a few people around and clicking all different things around. Overall the experience was wonderful.

Click here to see all the photos.

My friend Varun and I finished work early today and decided to head out. We first wanted to capture the sunset, but by the time we reached the place it was dark. So we deiced do a small night trek and climbed the hill. The view from top is fabulus.

Last but not the least, I wanted to click the start streak, so I did a 5 min exposure.

The rock and the trees are very clear in the picture. It was pitch dark. We can see a small start streak. We had to head back so I had to stop the camera. One of these days, I want to try this again for may be 3 hours or so

Eating places…

Having studied in vijaya jr. for 2 years cool joint was my fav place. I still love the sandwiches they make. As I write this blog my mouth is already watering….

Cool joint:

Upahara Darshini:

Nagarjuna Chimney:

Ganesh Darshan:

Best Masala Dosas in Jayanagar. Explains why it is crowded forever!

Iyengar’s Bakery:

One of the oldest and the best Bekery in Jayanagar.

Chat Shop…

These chat shops are the best. I have no idea how they make the chats so good!!! I love the speed in which he makes the chats. Somehow I’ve noticed you always get the best chats in a very small place!

Pav Bhaji in the making…

Cafe Coffee Day:

Shopping in Jayanagar…

The Wearhouse

Calypso…

The Road side shopping…

I loved clicking these snaps. All of them were very happy when I clicked their snap. Some of them asked me if the snaps was for a news paper…. hehee… for once I felt like a real photographer!

Life of Jayanagar…

Parking…

Night view…

Crossing…

Roller Skating event at Madhavan Grounds

Its nice to see a huge grounds available for the public in the heart of jayanagar. In my college days I used to come here to play different sports. Now they have renovated the roller skating and it looked real good. I dream to learn skating some day in life!

Fireworks:

It was nice to capture some fireworks that night.

Grounds at night:

Cultural Events…

This is jayanagar at a small glance. When you talk about bangalore, I think Jayanagar should be among the top of the list.