Last weekend, I was back in Sharavathy Valley in Shimoga, but this time for some water sports.

Here’s a photo essay of the trip:

When we were reaching our camp area, the entrance itself was impressive, and I was excited by such clear blue water.

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On Day 5 of my Singapore trip (Dec 26 Wed), Abishek and myself visited the Greek Masterpieces from Louvre exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore. This was the largest collection ever to be allowed to be borrowed from the famous Louvre museum in Paris (which you might have heard of from ‘The Da Vinci Code’ book).

The exhibition was so comprehensive that I was amazed. I raised my eyebrows on seeing a ‘Sports’ section and went on to read stuff like this:

Untranslatable, the word ‘agon’ denotes a gathering, and more specifically games and competitions, but also struggle, combat and battle, a trial or a debate, and a critical moment even. Personified by a winged man running, the notion underlies the whole of Greek civilization which has been described as ‘agonistic’ that is founded on the spirit of competition.

Then, I remembered that Olympics Games were started in Olympia, Greece. Duh. But the important thing to note is that they started it in 7th century BC! They gave sports so much importance more than 2500 years ago, and compare it to the situation today in India, except for cricket (My theory is that cricket was made popular because it is the perfect advertiser-friendly game ever, where else will you get a 15-20 second ad break after every few minutes i.e. an over!)

Next, I learned that theater was about politics and way to live, and the audience was paid to attend including their wages for several days since they would have to take off work to attend these plays! Now, that is a truly modern society!

There was so much more that I just couldn’t digest it all in such a short time: poetry, sports, religion, philosophy – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, schooling children with 3 teachers on specific areas of life, religion linked to running of the state and city – including patron deities protecting the city such as Athena for Athens, heroes such as Heracles (Roman ‘Hercules’), Achilles, Ulysses, Paris, etc., Zeus was King of Gods, there were 12 Olympian Gods including third-generation gods and goddesses, Alexander the Great was the greatest conqueror of all time, Romans stole most of the Greek artifacts since they were obsessed with Greek history and so they made copies of Greek statues and much of what we know about Greece is actually from these Roman copies.

A very interesting section of the exhibition was the “Dress like a Greek” section. There were a couple of robes kept, just like the ones you see the Senators wear in ‘The Gladiator’. There were directions in a poster on the wall. People took interest in trying it out and taking snaps. I was amazed at how they make everything visual and interactive in Singapore. This idea was a masterstroke in my honest opinion, because it makes something like history that can be so dry to be accessible and understandable for a layman. There were more sections such as a huge wall for kids to write their own sequels to the story of Troy (basically where Odyssey by Homer took off), and there were many hilarious writings by the kids.

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The past month, I have been experiencing what I can only describe as a burnout. When I think about it, I have been juggling too many things, but they were not extraordinary tasks, so I wonder why I felt ’stressed’.

Things have been so hectic that I even missed foss.in this year (I have attended every year since 2003) but good to know that it went so well.

The good thing was that the vacation was right around the corner which kept me going. Even an hour before leaving from home for the flight, I was struggling to complete chores.

I am now in Singapore, staying with my friends, and exploring the place since the last 5 days.

Singapore is a really amazing city to live in. Everything is streamlined. Even the fish in the Underwater World at Sentosa Island are RFID-tagged!

IIRC, I once saw a board that said there’s a 1000 SGD (singapore dollars) fine if you are found sitting on the stairs of the underground metro. I need to get one of those T-shirts that says ‘Singapore is a fine city’. Heh.

P.S. If you’re in Singapore too and want to meet up, give me a holler.

Update: Looks like Ben Rockwood is going through a strikingly similar phase.

A couple of weekends ago, most of the trekware gang met up for a weekend trek. This time we headed to Brahmagiri.

To reach Brahmagiri, take the bus to kuTTa (Madikeri district) but get down in Srimangala. Meet the forest officer (they come in at around 10 am) and it is better if you have called them up in advance and notified them. Enquire shops for guest house to freshen up and also for a jeep to take you to Iruppu Falls.

At Iruppu Falls, we met the forest guard who would accompany us during the trek.

The guest house that we stayed at was in the middle of a field where pepper and coffee was abundant. We plucked a pepper corn and ate it – it was deliciously spicy.

We then started the trek from Iruppu Falls and came across many interesting flora and fauna.

The good …

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I managed to catch the last day of the Bangalore Book Festival 2006 – I was surprised to see the number of people thronging the fair! It was truly a family affair – and we bought nearly a dozen books ranging from spiritual to tech to comics to Sherlock Holmes . I’m glad we visited the fair in the afternoon because, judging by the size of the audience, this place would have been suffocating in the peak evening time.

It was nice to see that the habit of reading real books hasn’t been lost and hasn’t been overtaken by the ubiquitous internet. And it was good to see a wide range of books (from a never-ending list of book vendors) other than the usual copies of Paulo Coelho and Mein Kampf. The disappointing thing was that most of the vendors were generic – everyone catered to everyone’s needs, and in turn, there were no books for specialized audiences – whatever happened to art books, or medical books, or travel books?

Relatedly, I just finished reading Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, it was fun to read. Any recommendations on novels in the same genre?

Bangalore is such a happening place that there are more things coming up:

• foss.in/2006 is just around the corner on Nov 24-26! Register now.

• Bengaluru Habba is happening on December 3-10 – It’s a pity that the official site is still under construction (and the dates on this logo seems to be “outdated”). The official website is BengalooruHabba.com (Thanks to Karthik for pointing it out).

• More events listed at eventsbangalore.net:

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I’m finally getting a vacation, so I’m off to trek in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Incidentally, my new year celebration will be trekking 10 km in the snow, from Khajjar to Mangla.

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From riding on the roof of the jeep, to walking 10 km, to diving in freezin’ cold water, to feasting our eyes to lush green hills, to loads of laughter, we did it all.

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This time it was Madhugiri Hill.

Eric Rougier has a wonderful 3D pic of the Louvre museum in Paris (Quicktime required). You might have read about the Louvre in The Da Vinci Code.

Eric has a mind-blowing Panorama section that I check out from time to time.

Paris is truly the City of Lights.