Trip to Talcauveri, Coorg Karnataka

Following our trip to Golden Temple, before we returned to Bangalore we made a stop at Talcauveri near Bagamandala. It is about 40 KM from Madikeri, which is the capital of Coorg.

The drive to this place is along the Bhagamandala forest range. Also the roads are carved along side the hills hence you will find number of sharp turns on the route. It was almost like driving along the ghat section since the roads were narrower too. Though we did see sign boards about animals crossing the roads, as always we could seldom see any. Also most parts of the route had small villages within about 5 to 10 kms apart.

Once we reach Bhagamandala, there is T junction, one of which will take us to a town called Panathur bordering the state of Kerela. And the other 9  km uphill stretch taking us to to Talcauveri. The place gets it's name from the fact that this is the starting point of river Cauveri flowing in the states of Karnataka, Kerela and Tamil Nadu. Tala here means origin. Since Cauveri is considered as goddess for the people of this state there is a shrine surrounding the actual starting point.

Once we parked our car and moved towards the temple, we were asked to deposit our footwear as the place we were about to enter was considered holy. My friend Sadiq was wearing shorts, hence he was asked to wear a panche(lungi) to cover his exposed legs. He was not amused by this rule though. 

Apart from the shrine, where the devotees can offer prayers, there is very long and steep steps that will take us to a hilltop with a nice and scenic view of the surroundings. Under the hot sun with barefoot, taking these steps were a real challenge and it tested our stamina to the fullest. It took us approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete the journey with multiple pit stops for catching breath.

Once we reached the top spot, all our weariness were gone after seeing the spectacle unfold in front of our eyes. Since it was almost noon time there were no clouds and we could see as far as the horizon went. It was also the time to take as much clicks as possible.

Trip to Golden Temple, Coorg, India

On the way to Madikeri, as we get closer to it, there is a place known a Kushalnagar. It's a small town largely known for the Tibetian settlements around this area. The most iconic landmark in this place is the Golden Temple monastery.

The temple itself is located about 2 km off the main road. As we take turns to reach the place, we will start seeing the monks of all ages with their attires along the streets. Once we reach the place we will find a shopping complex mainly run by Tibetans. They are mostly handicrafts and household decorative items. 

Once we made our purchases mainly a hat for Manjesh and head massager for Sadiq, we headed towards the temple's main entrance. It was late in the evening when we had reached the place. Almost about 5pm. We could find few shops inside the temple premises as well.

The most endearing sight for us were these little monks running around in their traditional attire. My friend Manjesh observed that, isn't it cruel that these young ones will have to spend rest of their lives doing what they are supposed to do to become monks themselves. I couldn't argue more as it was true that these young boys were oblivious to the world outside their monastery. 

We visited all the main temples and were in awe of the sculptures and mainly the large gold laden statues of the deities inside the main temple.

Few more clicks and we were off to Madikeri.

One day trip to Atlanta, Georgia, USA

After spending almost 70 days and nights of what is the coldest winter in Ohio in the past 20 years, I was looking forward to my trip back home to a much warmer India.

From Cleveland I reached Atlanta in the morning of 8th March to catch my flight to Paris before I get the connection to my final destination and home Bangalore. I had almost 8 hours of layover at the Atlanta terminal. I had planned to tour the city in my short time available before I flew out. I was desperate for some outdoor sight seeing because the two months I spent in Ohio were mostly indoors. 

I took the subway train from airport to downtown Atlanta. Believe me I had made no prior plans on list of places to see here. It was only on the subway train that I started searching the must see places online. I short listed 3 places a. Atlanta aquarium , b. CNN studio and c. The Cica cola factory.

From the information I collected online I could see that all of these places were in walking distance of each other. As soon as I stepped outside the train and walked towards the downtown area, I was in for a rather surprise and shock. It was almost 70•F ! Imagine coming from consistent 20s and 30•F of Ohio to this pleasant and warm weather. Trust it was a different feeling altogether to be able to walk freely without having to run to the nearest shelter for warmth. 

My first stop was the Inside CNN studio tour. The tour is for about 2 hours where the tour filicide walks us through the various broadcast related places and gives us a glimpse of how love news is broadcasted to millions of homes in America and abroad. The first thing I learnt was that Atlanta was the founding place and current headquarters of CNN in America. Almost 70% of the content we see on CNN daily is out of this studio. The next big base for CNN is out of New York City.

The guide showed us a live set where a program was about to come live in a few moments. We could hear the producer giving instructions and the go ahead. We were shown multiple screens, current screen which we see in our homes, the advertisements screen and finally the studio screen where the anchor was preparing to go live in few seconds. The guide explained how all these screens are mixed and placed together in a program format so that we get to see a seamless experience of watching live programs without interruptions.

The. Next stop of the studio tour was the reporter desk from where the news readers read the news. We were shown a camera which had a built in tele prompter placed in front of the desk. Now the interesting thing about live news is that they are hardly live! Almost all of the programs have a background preparation time of about 5 to 6 hours to get the script ready. The participants include the anchor , content writers and producers. While reading news the reporter will have a hard copy of the script as well as the assistance of the tele prompter. The tele prompter is tactically placed such that we would feel as though the anchor is making direct eye contact with the camera. The hard copy will be used if the prompter fails.

We were also shown how the weather update works. We get a feeling that the weather reporter is standing against a large screen and providing an update. But in reality, they would be standing against a complete all green screen and the real weather screen is mixed in a computer program and transferred to the live feed. The reporter will have a hidden prompter with indications and cue's for the report. The guide also demonstrated a typical Hollywood trick, where he draped a visitor in green and the person just vanished from the screen!

The final stop was the main control center where the news analyst scanning through all their possible sources to generate one thing - NEWS. They had on display all rival channels along with online sites of various news agencies etc. They use them to compare the information mostly.