The Carnival was to mark the completion of 2yrs since GHAC’s inception. Its also to declare that GHAC is around 2400 members strong and completed around 220 adventure events.

The event began with a dance performance to mark the Independence day, proceeded to a first of its kind adventure wear fashion show and over to a presentation by an Rajiv Trivedi, Additional Director AP police academy, about his adventure activities (marathon running, long distance swimming, power paragliding for some!).

The head of APTDC (which was a sponsor for the event) announced that they would be more than willing to partner with GHAC to organize adventure events in Hyderabad. That’s great news folks, we could do paragliding and rafting/sailing in the Hussain Sagar as a beginning!!

Two more dances and another round of fashion show later, sumptuous dinner was served. I liked the Salami Murgh more than anything else on the menu!

Well after dinner GHACians hit the dance floor and jived to the tunes of the Hyderabadi rock band ‘The Strangers’.

Then was the moment I’d been waiting for, the official launch of the GHAC Carnival Edition Magazine. Oh! I happen to be the Editor and this time I’d a committee to help me write, edit, design, proof read, go around printing presses to get the best deal to print a few copies.

So what’s interesting about the magazine this time? We’ve

• A dozen event exciting event descriptions.
• Four brand new features

1. I can still hear it…about Doodhsagar trek by one the GHACians
2. Bitter Litter on why we should not litter around
3. A 1000Km along the Himalayas another adventurer’s experiences on a trip to Manali Leh Ladakh Srinagar Kargil
4. Buying a Sleeping Bag that guides on buying what an adventurer has to have, the sleeping bag!

• An exciting new look and design featuring the GHAC Carnival theme.

Please find your copy here:

Click for your copy in pdf

The GHAC Carnival ended for me with some prizes and gifts to the best of its people.

A few photographs from the event:

Taramati Badradri fort, the event was held in the resort right beside

The inagural dance on ARR's Maa Tujhe Salaam!

By a dance group on Jai Ho!

Fashion show with the 'adventure gear' theme

Hyd Roc band - The Straingers

The Carnival Organizers with the chief Guests

Fashion show with the 'sailing gear and more ' theme

GHACians can sing too!!

My Organizer-badge though I'm just the newsletter editor!

For those of you who are wondering where Moula Ali Dargah was… its located in Secunderabad some where in between Mirzalaguda, Tarnaka and ECIL.

The trek was organized by enthusiasts from the Great Hyderabad Adventure Club. They’re a club who come together to travel, trek, hike, camp etc. For every trip they go on, they start with an announcement on meetup.com and invite members to RSVP if they’d like to join. The club was founded in 2008 and has become so famous in these two years that there would be a waiting list of about 10 on every one of their meetup adventures.

I was lucky to have registered early, thanks to Moumita, a friend of mine from TCS. And soon as I told my roomies (read room-mates) about the idea, they jumped into registering on meetup. In all we were Bharath, Moumita, Anchal, Vijay, Arun, Naresh, Karteek and Ravi (not in this pic, ‘cos he was shooting it!).

The plan was to meet at Moula Ali at 0615 hrs on Saturday morning. And that meant we’d to get up at a ghostly 0430 hrs, get ready and drive some 20 odd Km to reach Moula Ali on time.

Somehow, things fall in place when we set out to have fun! Moumita and Karteek joined us roomies in just no time and there we were to meet twenty others. Padmaja from the organizing team greeted us, while I was contemplating if I knew this person already. Yes I did, I met here before at a Deloitte Toastmasters event. Aah Toastmasters… I must say its almost like a religion! I get to know quite a few wonderful people through it.  Now for example, there were at least four Toastmasters on this trek (Me, Moumita, Padmaja, Arun and Srivalli).

To describe the terrain that awaited us, Moula Ali dagrah was atop one huge rocky hill. In fact the hill itself looked much like one huge rock. While most of us took the steps, the looking-for-adventure lot tried to climb through the sides. Once up there, we introduced ourselves. As would be expected, there were quite a few IT folks, from TCS, Infotech, Microsoft… so on and so forth. But the interesting part was that there were folks like Mr. Subbarao who once woked for the Indian Air Force, a Kargil veteran, with his about 5yr old chirpy kid Meghna.  And there was Virginia Wang – Chinese by origin, an American by nationality. What we wont forget about her is her flawless Telugu.

Once the intros were done, Padmaja lead us through the steep downhill behind the dargah. Man it was so steep that I thought I’d fall straight down to earth. But as destiny would have it, I climbed down and up easily enough !

Once we were back from the first of the three planned adventures, we tried very hard to push some rocks down the hill, after all there were too many of them there and the hill seemed burdened.

We went to the other side of the hill and discovered that there were two other hills that looked similar and we could go there the next time around.

A little later I saw the team walking down the hill. While I was wondering if the trek was over already over, we assembled for what would be for most of us, the once in a lifetime, almost vertical climbing experience.

Click on this picture for more pics of the trek

Initially climbing the wall like rock seemed impossible and even risky. But as a few of us did it with ease, we the first timers tried it out too. It is at this moment when I learnt a few nice tricks/rules of the sport.

1. Hold on tight, take a nice little jump start, keep the momentum going.
2. The three-point-contact rule: At any instance, three of your limbs have to grip firm before you make the next move.
3. Keep calm, breathe deep and believe that you can make it to the top.
4. Encourage all those around, you’ll get the same from them!

What was beautiful to see was that people from various walks of live, who did not know much of each other teamed up, encouraged, helped eachother, and more than anything else, had loads of fun.

I must thank Moumita for having suggested me to sign up, Padmaja and co. for having organized it perfectly, and all those wonderful people that were there. Hope to meet you all soon!

Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

There is no doubt that this is the kind of party that would clean up the malice in our societies now, and bring about the much needed upliftment.

But, unfortunately, a majority of us seem to believe that Lok Satta would not be in a position form government. It might not be able to do so this election term, but our votes count, even if  the party wins 10 assembly constituencies, it would be a great advance. Next election term, they would win all that it takes to form govt.

Lets Vote, lets vote for Lok Satta.

Please visit this links for their manifesto.
http://www.loksatta.org/

Lok Satta Agenda

http://loksattafocussed.blogspot.com/2008/07/loksatta-irrevocable-guarantees.html

1. ప్రజా రాజ్యం పార్టీ ని విమర్శించే నైతిక హక్కు కేవలం ఒక లోక్ సత్తా పార్టీ కి మాత్రమే వుంది – పవన్ కళ్యాణ్, యువ రాజ్యం అద్యక్షుడు

నేను పార్టీ నిర్ణయాల మేరకే మాట్లాడాలి, నిజం మాట్లాడే హక్కు నాకు లేదు , ఇనుప చట్రం లో బందీ ని నేను. జయ ప్రకాష్ నారాయణ అలా కాదు, స్వేత్చా జీవి. నిజం నిర్భయంగా గా చెప్పగలడు – కే రోశయ్య, ఆర్ధిక మంత్రివర్యులు, కాంగ్రెస్ పార్టీ

నోట్లకు వోట్లు అమ్మే ఈ రోజుల్లో జయ ప్రకాష్ నారాయణ వంటి ఆణిముత్యం కూడా గెలిచే పరిస్తితి లేదు – బండారు దత్తాత్రేయ, మాజీ మంత్రి, బి జే పి

పార్టీలు మెచ్చిన పార్టీ, ప్రత్యర్డులు మెచ్చిన నాయకుడు… కొత్త తరం రాజకీయల్ని ఆహ్వానిద్దాం , లోక్ సత్తా కి వోటు వేద్దాం.

2. గత సంవత్సరం హైదరాబాద్ లో వరదలు వచినప్పుడు ఒక నలభై ఏళ్ళ మహిళ మ్యాన్ హోల్ లో పడి మరణించిన సంఘటన గుర్తు వుందా ?

పంజా గుట్ట ఫ్ల్య్ ఓవర్ కూలి నలుగురి నిర్ధక్షన్య మృతి గుర్తు వుందా ?

గోకుల్ చాట్ బాంబు పేలుళ్లు ? సత్యం కంప్యూటర్స్ వుదంతం ?

పాత బస్తి అల్లర్లు ? మీ ఇంటి ఎదురు రోడ్ మీద గుంటలు ? 50 మంది ఎక్కాల్సిన బస్సు లో 200 మంది అత్యంత ప్రమాదకర ప్రయాణాలు ?

ఏడుగురు పట్టే ఆటో లో 15 మంది వెళ్ళడం ?

పోలీసుల బూతులు ?

మనిషి మరో శ్రుష్టి నిర్మించే దిశ గా ప్రపంచ దేశాలు అడుగు వేస్తుంటే మనం ఎక్కడ వున్నాం ?

మార్పు వద్దా ? ఆలోచించండి !!

నిస్వార్థ రాజకీయాలకు నాంది పలుకుదాం, లోక్ సత్తా కి వోట్ వేద్దాం. నవ సమాజం నిర్మిద్దాం

3. నాలుగే నాలుగు సులభమైన ప్రశ్నలకు సమాధానం వ్రాయండి,
బహులైచ్చిక ప్రశ్నలు :

Ananda Sangamam: Whats more, the participants will get a chance to meet the guru himself, the founder of Isha Foundation, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev (or Jaggi as he is fondly known as). Participants would also have the privilege to practice Shambhavi Maha Mudra in the presence of the master.

Dates and Venues would soon be published. Please watch this space.

Meanwhile, there is the regular Inner Engineering program being conducted this 15th at the State Arts Gallery in Madhapur. The following is the e-flyer.

Welcome to the Hyderabad traffic.

All of us have always thought that somebody is not doing something right that our driving experiences are such bad.

• The roads are bad; it must be the Roads & Buildings department that’s to blame.

• There are path holes, roads dug and cut, it must be the Telecom department that never cares if the road was new or old before digging right in the middle.

• The manholes overflow, it must be the Sewage board that has either not designed the drainage well or it hasn’t cleaned it up in a long time.

• There are heaps of garbage by the road side, it must be the Municipality that is lazy.

• Autorikshaws carry beyond their capacity, seven people in place of three; most drivers do not know traffic rules, you suspect many don’t posses a valid driving license; it must the Road Transport Authority that’s responsible clearly.

• There are dangling cables over poles on dividers, some of them cut and strewn on the road, motorists might skid and fall; it must the irresponsible cable companies.

• Street lights seldom work; it might be the electricity department or the Municipality again.

• In the name of watering the grass on the dividers, a tractor pulls a tanker emptying water less on to the grass and more on to the road, to add to it, the tractor blocks traffic in the busiest of the hours; it must be the urban development department that doesn’t care.

• People don’t follow traffic rules; it must be the traffic police who don’t do a thing to educate people.

The more we saw things being wrong, the more we thought some one isn’t doing it right. A majority of us think, nothing is right so we’ll do the wrong too. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Even if you were a sincere guy, you wanted to follow the traffic rules, not cross lines, not honk or switch lanes; it seems increasingly burdensome with all the roadies who don’t care a damn, all that they want it’s to drive on carelessly. It’s frustrating to be wanting to be sincere but not being. It’s easier to choose other wise, join the others, and be one in the many.

I pity the plight of the odd traffic police. It’s a difficult job, no doubts on that. People have become reckless, overpowered the authority of the cop who once conducted the traffic as an orchestra. The traffic police are made fun of; they collect bribes as less as 5 Rupees and let you go clean. That’s their reputation. But some of them still struggle long hours on the roads, still conduct a creaking orchestra, thinking that at least there wont be noise if not fine music. Now we are made to feel the traffic police are just incapable.

Contrary to normal people’s ways of thinking, that controlling traffic was the duty only of the traffic police, I saw this one guy who thought it would be better to get down to business and do the traffic control job himself than to blame it on every one else. No he isn’t a cop, looks to me like a just-outa-school hippo guy with dark goggles on, in a tee shirt and jeans. Seemed to me like a rich kid, came in a BMW. When I saw him first helping the traffic cop, I thought he might be doing it to ease traffic at the busy hour. When I saw him do that the next day, I thought this rich kid has found a real good pastime for himself, something that’s helping us all with the traffic. I saw him the day after, and after, it’s been a few weeks already. He’s not there for fun or neither is it for a pastime I realized. He has taken it seriously. He turned up every day. He arranged for barricades, sign boards. And not just stopping at that, he manages the traffic in full energy, shouts at people who cross the stop line, explains them its wrong, makes people do it right. The traffic police might have been caught in awe. The otherwise very dull looking traffic constable at the junction looks all revved up. I sincerely appreciate the effort of this young man, wish I knew more about him. If each one of us kindles the same kind spirit in us, the roads will sure be better places to exist on.

No, I’m not saying all of us should control traffic. Then, who would drive? Let’s be good citizens, to start with let’s be good drivers. Let’s rear a driving culture.

Let’s do these while we’re on the road:
If we’re driving:

• Let’s follow rules. They’re very simple as they are, the traffic rules.

• Let’s not jump signals, saving those 30 odd seconds won’t really save us a fortune.

• Let’s not honk at the cyclist, at the guy whose bike goes silent as he hurries to catch the green-signal-momentum, at the old guy who loves driving slow.

• Let’s leave free-left free, the left-goers needn’t wait for a green signal.

• Let’s not drive on the wrong side, that’s meant for our fellows who’re coming while we’re going!

• Let’s overtake only from the right side, after we’re sure we can.

• Let’s choose one lane and be on it, watch and switch.

• Let’s wear helmets, after all it’s for our heads, valuable some of them. Helmets keep off the smoke and dust too.

• Let’s fasten  seat belts if we’re driving a car. Most cars these days come with them.

• Let’s put the phone to silent, if we cant afford to, lets pull over and finish a quick ‘I’ll call you once I reach’ call, but never talk on the phone being behind the steering.

• Let’s not smoke while we’re driving, our vehicles smoke so much already.

• Let’s use the indicators to signal we wish to take a turn. It’s more than just commonsense.

• Let’s not park where it says ‘no-parking’. It might need a bit of patience to find a decent place to park but by doing that you’d have made a pleasant difference to all of us.

• Let’s drive a bit longer to find the U-turn. It might cost us time and fuel but we’d have the satisfaction of having done it right.

If we’re walking:

• Let’s use the pathways or the footpaths to walk on.

• Let’s wait for the pedestrian signal turn green before we cross the road.

• Let’s use the zebra crossing to cross the road. The Zebras are going extinct, lets show some respect!

• Let’s wave out to the motorists signaling that we’re crossing, they would sure give us that space.

We needn’t be great but we can sure be good. Being good is difficult. But you’ll see, it’s easier than being bad, its better too. Let’s drive better, let’s enjoy driving on.