Manhattan has always been the most fascinating urban locale. With
its tall buildings it surely is a concrete jungle. The first time I
saw the Manhattan skyline from a distance, my heart beat skipped. It
was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. And that the
thought that I am going work in Manhattan just added to the
excitement!

I stayed on the western side of the Hudson river and Manhattan is
on the eastern side of the river. My apartment had a beautiful
Manhattan view. There are beautiful running/walking/cycling tracks on
either sides of the Hudson river. I used to practice for my Marathon
by running everyday on the track which is on the western side of
Hudson which would always give a great view of the Manhattan. And
many times I used to run in the night & Manhattan looks straight
out of dream when you would look at it from the western bank during
night.

On a beautiful summer night in July 2007 I looked out of my room
window at Manhattan and saw that the clouds and the moonlight had
given a stunning look to Manhattan. Me and my roomie Chendur set out
for a photography session on the river bank and what transpired is
here for you to see!

Click
here for the full album on Picasa

Here is the slideshow

Deccan Herald has featured my
photographs of Kukkarahalli Lake. Check out “Your Space” at the
bottom of the home page of www.deccanherald.com

(It sits there as of today July 09
2008).

When I was in India on my looooong vacation in 2007/2008 I decided
to capture the beauty of the Kukkarahalli Lake of Mysore on my Canon
Rebel XT. Most of the Mysoreans whom I showed the photos fail to
recognize that it is Kukkarahalli Lake. Not many have really
seen the beauty of this beautiful lake which is actually located at
the heart of Mysore city which is just another example of what
an amazing place Mysore is for living.

If you live in Mysore I would really suggest that you should be
going for a walk or for a run around the beautifully made 4 KM track
around the Kukkarahalli Lake. The best time would be early morning 6.
I took these photographs at early morning during sunrise.

Click
here to have a look at the entire album on picasa.

Capturing the golden moments of the fall season is every
photographer’s dream. I was no different. Since I happened to be in
US during the fall of 2007 I decided do a fall trip. Me, Chendur,
Titus and Monna started out to New Hampshire in October
2007 as the fall was little late in 2007. And as we had imagined it
was a treat both for our eyes and for our cameras! Check out the full
album to enjoy the golden moments of the fall season.

[This article has many photos]

The transparent columbus landing beach

Shesh under-water!

Click here for the entire photo album of my Caribbean Vacation

This is a long pending post. This actually happened in April 2007.

This should be one of the best vacations ever for me and definitely in the most beautiful of all places!

My cousin Harsha called me and told me that we can plan to go to visit Murali Mama in Virgin Islands. I never knew where it was located. Then I saw it on the map to realize that it’s part of Caribbean and it is much closer to Venezuela than the US. That was enough to make me determined to visit Murali Mama at any cost!

Murali Mama works at the Hovensa Refinery in the tiny island St. Croix which is part of the Virgin Islands. It is so small that it’s maximum length is 45 KM and width is 11 KM! It’s a small Island but has lot of variation in the type of beaches and vegetation found there. One can find calm, still and completely transparent waters and few beaches & one can find wavy waters at few other beaches. There are mountains and Rain forests at one side and dry land at the other end! The Island with lots of coconut trees has a vegetation that reminded me of India.

Murali mama stays in a large colonial house. The most surprising part was that the house is owned by an Indian doctor whose grandfather hails from the same tiny village that my grandfather hails from - Arkere in Mandya District of Karnataka!!! That world is really a small place!

Murali mama had given us a big room in his house and we had his car with us to roam around. What more to ask for!

Just behind Murali Mama’s house there is an amazing beach with total transparent waters. Columbus landed in this beach during his first journey! The water is so transparent that when I was swimming I felt as if I am swimming in a giant swimming pool! Even when I had swum away very far from the shore I could see my shadow on the deep ocean floor!! That was an unbelievable experience!

The island has lots of amazing restaurants next to the sea.

The goods and services on the island is completely tax free! So, we used to get food and drink at great rates. We spent lot of time swimming around in different beaches. We did Jet Skiing in the transparent waters. The water at the Jet Skiing site was as transparent as glass and I don’t think I will ever have such a nice Jet Skiing experience in any other place!

Click here for the entire photo album of my Caribbean Vacation

Picture perfect

Harsha & Shesh Jet Skiing

With Elizabeth, my scuba diving instructor

St. Croix island from the sky

[This article has many photos]

Rang De Basanti! -Click to Zoom

I love convertible… -Click to Zoom

Click here for the entire photo album of my Smoky Mountain visit

www.flickr.com sheshagiri’s Smoky Mountains -Thanksgiving 2006 photoset

This was a Thanksgiving I’ll remember for a long time.

I went to Smoky Mountains with my roomie Rahul. We had booked a cabin in Gatlinburg, the most famous town in Smokies. Man, the cabin was amazing. It had a really large TV, DVD player Playstaion, x-box……billiards table, foosball, jacuzzi. It was a truely amazing wooden cabin. We were joined by Rahul’s friends and their friends in Gatlinburg. Our gang was made of 18 colorful people!

We started the first day with Jacuzzi and beer. We later played poker till late night. Poker can be a very interesting game with lot of people around. The next day we went around for long drive around in the smokies. The traffic was real slow in the mountains. Along the drive we stopped for our Rang De Basanti. We had real fun while driving. Rahul’s car was top down most of the time. We were going on with full music. That day evening we had good food in a restaurant and then we had the highlight of the day. We went for bull ride. Even though it’s not exactly a real bull, the ride can be pretty tough! It’s a machine which looks like a bull. We are supposed to sit on it with only one hand on the rope. This bull shakes us off and believe me it’ll throw you off in 30 seconds!

The last day we went around for go carting and other games. We ended the day with Horse riding. We were a bit late and we had to ride the horse on the mountain track in darkness. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience.

The best part of our holiday was that the weather was great on all the four days. It was sunny thoughout.

The cabin where we stayed  - click to zoom

[This article has many photos]

Night view of Basantpur…

With Sadhus at Pashupati temple…

Click here for the entire photo album of my Nepal Visit

www.flickr.com sheshagiri’s Nepal Sep 2006 photoset

I had never really planned this visit.

Ravi and I had nice time in Goa and we headed to Pune in the Goa express. The journey was awesome. Lot of people from our Osho camp were with us in the train. And not to mention the track of the train was amazing. We get a water falls on the track & the train goes through the hills and forests of the wonderful Western Ghats!

We landed in Pune & took up a room at Popular Heights near Osho Commune. We stayed in Pune for 5 days. The experience at the commune was nice. The pyramid meditation room was as out of the world as it could be. It’s definitely one of the best man made structures on this planet. This is my second visit to the commune. Some how it was not as interesting as my first visit. I started to get a little bored this time. May be because there were very less people around in the commune this time.

At the right time I met Ma Rachana from Nepal in the commune. She said it’s a good time to visit Nepal and invited me to Katmandu. Again started my journey. I bought the train ticket to Delhi and started my journey without a confirmed seat. And guess what I spent my birthday on that train without a booked seat! Couldn’t sleep whole night! But I made friends in the train. There was a Kashmiri girl in the train who helped me sit through the tough journey.

Finally we reached Delhi.My KREC friend Neelesh was there to help us. We stayed at his place in Katwaria Sarai just behind IIT, Delhi. From Delhi Ravi left to Haridwar to learn Yoga from Ramdev & I left for Katmandu in a bus. Well, my intension was to fly to Nepal but a recent rule which has made it mandatory to have either passport or election id with us to fly to Nepal prevented me to take the air route. I met a travel agent who said it just takes 24 hours to go to Katmandu by bus. It was only I started my bus journey that I realized that I had been taken for a ride. As a matter of fact for a long ride They bus journey turned out to be one of the most difficult in my life. It was a 44 hour journey in a bus in which people had been loaded like cattle. I was the only Indian in that bus, rest were all Nepalis! God knows how I came out of that bus journey alive!!

I stayed at Osho tapoban in Katmandu. It was a nice experience over there. Tapoban is located on a slope of a mountain right in the middle of the Himalayas. Even here there was not much crowd as Sw. Anand Arun was out of the country. Usually there’ll be lot of people here when mediation camps are being conducted. I got a nice driver who stays near to Tapoban. He reminded me of the driver Salman Khan gets in the movie Saajan. This driver was having a 1978 Nissan & man that car was in a great condition! He took me all around Katmandu. I also met Ma Rachana who showed me places around. She is a popular personality in the Nepal entertainment world. She used to be the news reader on the national channel few years back. Now she is a producer, actress,…..She was the only friend I had there and she did make my Nepal visit a memorable experience.

The most amazing and unexpected fact about Nepal that I discovered was that the Nepali girls/women are extremely beautiful. Also, it is said that there are lot more women in Nepal than men. At least that’s how it looked to me. Women in Nepal are not conservative like in India. They have taken up all kinds of profession which is more visible than in India.

Overall it was a great experience in Nepal.

Finally I got a certificate from Indian embassy which allowed me to take the air route back home.

Buddha at the Pune Osho commune

Nepali woman

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[This article has many photos]

Night view of the Nanu resort

Click here for the photo album of Goa Visit of Sep 2006

www.flickr.com sheshagiri’s Goa Sep 2006 photoset

I had the pleasure of visiting Goa again this year! After all I started this year in Goa

There was a Osho camp being conducted in Goa by Bagmar swamiji of Osho Arihant Dhyan Kendra, Pune. That was an awesome news for me and my frined Ravi. We just started our journey heading towards Goa. The camp was held in a wonderful beach resort - Nanu Resort at Betalbatim in Goa. We got good accomodation, nice swimming pool, g8 food, awesome beach & of course the meditation camp. The crowd was mostly from Maharashtra in and around Pune. They were very friendly and I had great time with them.

After the camp we went around Goa for a day & we then left for Pune in Goa express. Man the track was awesome, I have photos from the train, checkout the full article!

White Robe Meditation

cruise boat

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[This article has many photos]

Woman with a pot of milk at Shravanabelagola

Click here for the entire photo album of my Shravanabelagola

It was the first weekend of September.Saturday night my friend Ravi & me went to Barista for coffee in the midnight. Then we went for a drive on the MG Road and Brigade road. Suddenly we got Josh & decided to drive somewhere out of Bangalore. It was night 1:00 PM! We decided to go towards Hassan. As we were driving on the way to Hassan we realized we are not far from Shravanabelagola, place where ancient temple of Jains is located. We drove down & reached there early morning.

We had a great day over there watching the incredible stone carvings which date back to 10th Century A.D. We spent time in photography & in meditation.

We then went to Mandageri in the evening had good time in Hemavati river.

www.flickr.com sheshagiri’s Shravanabelagola Sep 2006 photoset

Click here for the entire photo album of my Shravanabelagola

at Reliance petrol pump at night 1:00 AM

Ravi on the steps

the 57 feet Bahubali (being cleaned) Read complete story

[This article has many photos]

A view of Chicago from Navy Pier

This June I had the fabulous opportunity of visiting the windy city - Chicago.

My Lufthansa flight was via Chicago & I decided to give a halt there to visit my cousin Sudarshan Rao & family. Man, it indeed turned out to be a great experience. Never had I seen such a concentration of tall buildings (yet to visit The City).

I had the opportunity to fly over Lake Michigan & also to go on a motor boat on it. Even from flight, most of the times I couldn’t the shores of the lake. Water, water & water all the time. It’s a fresh water lake & its 494 Km in length & 190 KM in width! If only we had so much of fresh water in India