Don't ignore hair loss # SMS SPAM

"Don't ignore hair loss. Treat it before it gets too late! Consult the experts in Hair Treatment"  - Hair Loss Courtesy: Vodafone Do Not Disturb..

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rickshaw facts

Commonly seen: A rickshaw wala pulls out his leg and pushes another
rickshaw, their journey continuing without caring too much about other
vehicles on road

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Belapur Fort & Gadeshwar Lake

Belapur Fort 

A change in plan gave me an opportunity to visit the nearby Belapur fort. Thanks to the book by Harish Kapadia where I first came across the existence of this place. Surprisingly, its not at all difficult to locate - stands right on the Palm Beach road. Google Maps was sufficient to guide me to the place.

The forts stands in a severely dilapidated condition. Infact it it surrounded by several plush looking residential complexes. Theres no proper route to reach the top. Just wade your way through and you come across a massive Bastion( walking 15 or 20 mins from Palm Beach Road). This is the only structure which is identifiable as a fort. There are traces of other constructions on the fort. A wall marks the other end of the hillock on which this fort rests. Going ahead of this wall makes you enter a nearby society. There are 2 small water sources near the fort (but not atop).

Thankfully, this fort has very less number of names written over it. Also there are no traces of humans making this place into a public toilet.

History: (As per Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belapur_Fort ), The fort was built in 1560–1570 by the Siddis, after they wrested control of the area from the Portuguese, In 1682, the fort was recaptured by the Portuguese, who had managed to annex the regions controlled by the Siddis, near Belapur (at that time known as Shabaz). In 1733, the Marathas, led by Chimnaji Appa, wrested control of the fort from the Portuguese. He had made a vow that if it were to be successfully recaptured from the Portuguese, he would place a garland of beli leaves in a nearby Amruthaishwar temple, and after the victory the fort was christened as Belapur Fort. The Marathas ruled the area until 23 June 1817, when it was captured by Captain Charles Gray of the British East India Company. The British partially destroyed the fort under their policy of razing any Maratha stronghold in the area. During its active days, the fort stationed four companies each of 180 men, and 14 guns ranging from 4–12 pounds (2–5 kg) in weight. An underground tunnel is also supposed to exist, which many locals believe connects it to Gharapuri Island, the site of the Elephanta Caves.

Gadeshwar Lake:

Going ahead from Belapur and having a little snacks, we reached Gadeshwar Lake, a very beautiful waterbody in the interiors of Panvel. It is a dam which lies in the centre of many well known peaks around the Badlapur- Karjat Area. The backdrop of Chanderi is the most inviting for any photography enthusiast. The lake was almost dried up with very little water, but with a lot of grassy flat lands. Grazing cattle looking curiously towards both of us was a little scary, but they were harmless.

It seems this place is crowded in the monsoons due to picnickers, obviously inviting tensions within the local police.



Panvel - Nere - Gadeshwar is almost a half an hour drive( approximately 15 - 20 kms).




A link to the complete Album is available below:

Belapur Fort, Gadeshwar

Belapur Fort & Gadeshwar Lake

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Lingana Climb, Chakram Hikers, Feb 2006

Lingaana: A pinnacle close to Raigad. I did this trek ( Climb) with Chakram Hikers in Feb 2006. For those who know these people, may find some change as to how they look now.

click here for photos:



http://photos.ameyagokhale.com/48837643


Lead Climber: Mahesh Kendurkar, Sharang Thorat

Team: Prateesh Sane, Pinak Puranik, Arun Ullal and Ameya Gokhale

Date: 11th Feb 2006.



The best part of this trek was about the fact that we actually rappelled in dark. Also the rope got stuck and had to be retrieved it the next day morning.

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Raireshwar Nakhinda Paathshila AswalKhinda

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RAIRESHWAR – NAKHINDA – PAATHSHEELA – ASWAL KHINDA

A route which existed some 20-30 years back, but eventually faded due to lack of usage- was our target for the last weekend. We did manage to get some things right, while we need to visit again to complete the rest. Some stuff below will be useful for fellow trekkers who in future plan to visit this place.

Some Geography:

Raireshwar, within itself is a popular place amongst trekkers and bears a significant history with Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj commencing the “Oath of Swarajya”.  Geographically Raireshwar  is more like a table platue, which spans over 20 Kms in length and 7 Kms in bredth( at the maximum). Raireshwar is now connected by a Tar road which reaches the south eastern edge. The road goes from Bhor- Korle – Raireshwar Khinda – Wai – Bhor.

The Extreme left (western) end of this platue is called “Nakhinda”. The Name Nakhinda in Marathi refers to a “Needles Hole”. There are many such small- big hills in the Sahyadri Ranges with a significant “Needles Holes”. The left edge of Nakhinda descends ferociously down to a col – Aswal Khinda. This col further descends to the base village called Kamthe.

Kamthe is connected to Kudali via a well trodden (walkable) route which passes through Aswal Khinda.

In the North, there is an Arm which juts out ( Northwards ) from the left end of Raireshwar platue and is locally called “PaathSheela”.  Kudali Village rests at the base of PaathSheela.

Surrounding hills include Chandragad, Koleshwar, Jaslodgad( Mohangad), Kamalgad, Kenjalgad.

Our Objective

1) Exploring Nakhinda and preferably, reaching above the needles hole. In the recent past, not many people have visited Nakhinda. To have a look at this huge Massif from all sides within itself would be an achievement.

2) Finding out a route which directly descends from Nakhinda to Aswal Khinda without going to Kudali village.

Our Trek:

Day 1:

We reached Bhor in an ST bus and managed to convince a Jeep driver to drop us till the Raireshwar Khinda. He (un)willingly took us there and we started our trek at nearly 6 am. With the courtesy of this new road, we directly reach very close to the top of Raireshwar. A small climb to the top (15 mins) takes you to the Temple and then the Village. This new road starts from near the Korle Village and reaches near the ladder of Raireshwar. It further goes till Wai and from there back to Bhor. Almost everyone in this village is called Jangam. We had a quick breakfast at Dagadu’s place and he appointed 2  guides to take us till our Destinations. However their condition was – “we will take you to whatever closest place we know of. Rest is your job to find out and explore”.

We were really quick to cross the Raireshwar platue and reach the southernmost point of the Raireshwar-Nakhinda Platue. Chandragad was standing right in front of us and koleshwar platue towards our left, saperated by a huge col. The route till this point waded through thick Karvy and thorny bushes. We moved ahead from over the edge (traversing) of the massif to reach a point from where the Needles Hole was very clearly visible. We all were kind of overjoyed, to finaly see this portion of Nakhinda because we had not seen this side of Nakhinda anytime before. (Time:  12 Noon)

As per our guide, from there to reach atop the Hole was not possible. Hence we decided to come back the same route till the junction of Raireshwar Nakhinda and then move northwards to approach Needles hole from Northern side.

Again a route which made us fight with thorny bushes, Karvy thickets and at times duck down to avoid being caught in the thorns took us till the north side of the Nakhinda Platue. This is also the junction where the jutting arm ( Paathsheela) commences. (Time: 2 PM). 

From here-on, the guides were very less co-operative since they were  not sure of the route by themselves. They tried convincing us not to try doing the Nakhinda to Aswal khinda route, but on pressing hard, they took us to a point which appeared terribly frightening with the extra heavy Sacks, most of us carried. The route actually had put us in 2 minds. It appeared as if it will take us to the Aswal Khinda, but at the same time, with the Heavy Sacks, it was rather risky to descend this way. Also there was a permenant fear of this route leading no-where.

At this point, our guides were strongly opposing us to venture this way down and also started to convince us to take the PaathSheela route which descends to Kudali. They also started complaining about the fact that it was nearly 2:30 PM and they have to return to their village before it gets dark.

We now decided to explore the route by ourselves. 2 of us went ahead to explore the direct route and 2 of us tried to locate the Kudali route. The Forest was really thick and wading it without a good koyta( big knife to cut branches) was impossible. Inspite of some good attempts, we had to leave that route and move ahead Time: 3 PM).

We crossed the Paathsheela and descended the route till Kudali- which is a fairly simple descend. On this route, I came across what is called an “Animal Trap” – a wooden structure which used to capture animals. We reached Kudali by somewhere around 8:30 PM.

Day 2:

The Super cold night made us Sleep well and  was refreshing afer the previous days effort of 16 hours. We started off for Aswal Khinda after a ‘Feasty’ Breakfast  at 10 AM. A simple route takes us to Aswal Khinda, which we managed to reach by 11:15 AM. We had a good break here and then started the long walk till Kamthe. We reached Kamthe at 3:10 PM. Kamthe though appeared closer, took us 3 long hours to reach from Aswal Khinda. A Jeep till Poladpur and another Jeep till Mumbai got us home at around 10 PM in the night.

Telephone Networks:

Almost all places on the Raireshwar platue and Nakhinda are covered by some or the other mobile network. However, as one descends Northwards towards Kudali, there is Absolutely NO NETWORK coverage, till you cross Aswal khinda.

Base Village and Transportation:

1)      Korle: served by buses from Bhor. Jeeps charge you nearly Rs 600 ( special Jeep). If you want to reach the Raireshwar Khinda, they will increase this amount to 1000.

2)      Kudli: Served by buses( 2 in the morning to bhor). Jeeps operate till Bhor.

3)      Kamthe: Served by ST buses- 3 or 4 in the day.  Jeeps also available locally.

Note: For contact details of Jeep Drivers, you can write to me.

Team:

·         Priti Patel

·         Rajas Deshpande

·         Dr Saurabh Chavan

·         Manoj Kalwar

·         Aneesh Gokhale

·         Ameya Gokhale

Pictures:

My Pictures for this trek are available below. If you need the full size versions of these pictures, please write to me.

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Mobile Phone Features and Sensibility

Although I am not a techie, I have had enough experience with mobile phones(as an END USER). The mobile revolution entered our lives sometime back in 1998. I remember the first individual whom I knew used a mobile phone was a 'hep' dude(Son of an industrialist) in my college. He supposedly bought his phone by selling off his bike. ( bike was cheaper and phones were as costly as a bike - What a comparison..!). Although primitive, his phone was talk of the town. Phones kept on becoming cheaper and cheaper and the number of people using mobiles grew exponentially. It took me almost 8 years after this incidence to actually own a cellular phone( I know that’s just too late, but now I know why people close to me call me a tube light).



Phones started percolating the Indian markets like an epidemic virus. features started getting better and better. Later years saw Cameras, Music, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Game Console, Multimedia Capability take over the mobile revolution. In the coming years, we are about to see much more added to these features. However, within my short usage of the 8 different handsets, I can starkly point out a list of sensible features which I found the most useful and always felt proud of the fact that my mobile phone had those.


1) Ability to save Extension numbers:


My first ever phone- a Motorola- CDMA( reliance) phone had a unique functionality to save the extension numbers. It was one of the most basic phones (which just managed to store 10 SMS messages- all dark screen, appeared like a dot matrix print). What it did was, Whenever we tried saving a number as "Office", it asked for an Extension number. WOW ..! I was more than happy because how much ever we advance, our offices still have those internal extension numbers which are a headache to handle if not remembered.


P.S; This functionality was never seen again. Even the latest blackberry models do not have this capability.


2) Auto Suggest Numbers:


While you make an outgoing call, and you type the first three or four numbers(within a 10 digit long mobile number), the phone out of its own intelligence suggests the possible numbers which share the same initial digits. This is similar to the way we type a part of the email address in GMAIL and some email addresses already stored in your contact book are already popped up and you can easily choose the one you want without typing the rest.


3) Search Name by Numbers:


We all know that we can search a persons phone number by typing some alphabets of his name in the address book. But now, I have a number and want to figure out whom it belongs to. There should be a functionality to insert a number and search whom it belongs to.vThe first I saw this was in the Sony Ericsson Music phones.


4) Changing Radio Channels using headphones:


For Nokia users, this is a regular feature, but unfortunately, I presently use a LG phone. This horrendous gadget does not allow me to anything apart from calling the last person and receiving a call.


5) Ability to add infinite applications(Java, Symbian, Android, or anything else):


C'mon, By infinite I don’t mean actually infinite. But at least 20 ?? My dear LG finds this too much and does not let me add anything more than 8 Java applications at one time. Nokia N73 did not have an upper limit on the number of applications till the time there was adequate free memory.


6) Standard Internet profile:


While you connect to the internet, it is important that your phone does not ask you too many questions. All the Nokia phones I used always asked me atleast a bunch of questions before they actually connected to any webpage. This is ridiculous because you desperately want to find out if your boss has sent you any email and all you do is click the wrong key to answer the right question. You may end up choosing a totally incorrect profile and choose paying a huge bill.


My current LG phone, does this (surprise..!) by asking me a one time question for which internet service to select.- Good I am happy.!!


7) Different Sockets for Charger and Headphones:


According to LG, I cannot listen to songs/radio or anything else while I charge my phone. (WTF..!). It happens so many times that I am running low on my battery and need to charge immediately. While this happens, I simply cannot use this phone for a conference call, which I know I must take on a headphone. Nokia was much better in terms of usability.


8) Ability to get RID of all those Trial Softwares:


All the advanced phones which I ever had, contained some crappy softwares which were trial versions and provided only half the functionality. The moment you start using them it says "visit the website to register your product". The website(if visited) charges you in some tens of dollars per year. I mean that’s too much. Firstly you expect us to use a trial version software in the world of open source and torrents. And above that, you want us to pay in terms of some 50 odd dollars ?? do you ever know that our mobiles themselves cost lesser than 20 dollars. Nokia allowed me to delete such useless softwares, but LG doesn’t.


9) Light Weight Browsers:


Whether Nokia, LG or Samsung, All come with a very heavy browser which takes a million seconds to initiate and then another million hours to connect to the internet. Now I am talking on a comparative basis. When the end users know of Extra-Ordinary softwares like Opera Mini, Bolt or even the full version Opera Mobile, why on earth are the Biggies obsessed with their Heavy - White Elephant browsers.

10) Ability to block SMS originating from Spammers:

My Vodafone number generates atleast 25 messages per day which are absolutely crap. The serve no purpose to me. I should be able to filter out such messages, as soon as it gets into my inbox. Most of the bulk SMS is delivered using Nams instead of numbers. Such messages should be deletable.

This is more or less a partial list. If you can think of some more MUST BE features. please comment below with the same ..!

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