Birthday Bash and ZNMD

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, The movie we guys wanted to watch, cos we guys too live by the same principle. Thanks Raghu for booking the tickets, and thanks to Reagan for making it. Last time Reags commented on FB that he will fly down from Canada if we went for a movie together and it did happen. 

3 Birthdays in one week, why wouldn,t there be a celebration.

Planning to nominate 2nd week of July as Pirt week. 

Unfortunately out of the 5 guys gathered, 3 of them were Birthday Boys, So Ram Charan and Arvind couldn't deliver some Birthday bumps to them.

Great Movie & Yummy pastry, and it did not end there, we guys had a  lavish dinner and we finished the day with a long drive. 

PS: Pirtans We are lagging behind in our target for 2011

Shankar's Madhuve

Marriages are occasions where I dont know how to wish the groom. Should I congratulate him or wish him luck. I just say " All the best mate". Here is the glimpse of the the marriage for all who missed it (Ehsaan, Loy and others).

This weekend we will be having a general meeting and the main point of discussion would be on whether Shankar should be sacked from PIRT or not. I think it would be wise if we sacked him after his treat!! Well guys lets not find some happiness in other man's pain, cos we all have to go through that pain, unless we decide to be a bachelor for life like Ram Charan.

Official PIRT Attendance: Vinutha, Naveen, Ram Charan, Khalid, Raghavendra, Srikanth, Shuaib, Arvind and how can we forget the man - Shankar

Srikanth's Birthday !!! :)

10th July

"Happy Birthday Srikiee"

1 done, 7 pending!!

If you guys are wondering what is it, its Shuaib's treat. He got a new job, bike, laptop, mobile, etc. He might have got a lot of new stuff but he is still happy with his old "Friends". Here is a quick look at our First Dinner party in 8 years. Wondering why it took that long, probably we guys had to grow up to go out in the nights.

Good get together, nice dinner and a night walk in commercial street, which is healthy to our eyes. Hope there are more such days or nights to come.

Shankar's Engagement

Feb 6th


Shankar has stepped to the next level.

Srividhya & Shankar

Pirtans Wishing Luck to Shankar

Fun Session

Like always we guys had fun, Thanks to Raghu, who came from Hyderabad. Thanks to Narasimha's Guest appearance. Thanks a ton to Naveen's French Kiss Beard and Many thanks to Vinod Kambli. Last but not the least, Thanks to Shuaib for not coming.

Now Pirtans, be ready to hear all kinds of excuses from Shankar for not attending the PIRT events. ;-)

Click here for the Engagement pics

Fun Filled weekend at Goa

Tailor made for PIRT International

After a lot of Mess and Fuss, PIRT's Go Goa Project was executed. With most of the planning done by Shuaib, it turned out to be an economical and yet very Enjoyable trip. 

Nescafe Sunrise

We landed fresh at Goa, as Shuaib had booked Sleepers. The trip started of with a lot of confusion, rite from booking, canceling and rebooking tickets. Even the bus journey from Tin Factory to Bus stand was eventful with a bus breakdown and Shankar and Shuaib Boarding a Bus without Srikanth and Arvind, Later Shuaib jumped out of the bus accompany Srikanth and left Shankar stranded in the bus. With some planning lapse, we reached the bus stand 2 hours early.

Sunset

Saturday morning, we reached Vasco, and we went to Calangute and hunted down a room to stay and freshen up. There was a lot of Bus riding in goa up until then, as the Taxis and Autos  were over priced. Then We Rented 2 Bikes for Rs. 200 Per day per bike. From then on it was all Rock and Roll. Freedom from everything, We did what we wanted and just rode around without helmets and traffic cops. Every thing seemed so easy, without any kinda stress on mind. We enjoyed some water sports at Calangute beach and then we headed to Bhaga at the evening to have a dip in the sea.Shankar who was ill before even we left to Goa was recuperating and felt better after an hours fun in sea.

Anjuna Beach

Night crept and we stopped at all the roadside eateries and ate everything we laid our eyes on, some of them were horrible, yet we enjoyed the liberty. A lot of traveling on day one, and some fun at the beach, Srikanth and Shankar wanted to hit the bed, but Arvind and Shuaib had other plans - Saturday night market. Arvind and Shuaib went to the market and it was a good long ride in the night. To our delight the market was still on at 12:30 AM. 

Afternoon

Sunday's early Bird Prize goes to Srikanth, Who got up at 5:30 and woke us up, we all were ready and were in time for the sunrise. This is when we decided to take a boat ride and visit the Dolphins of the Arabian Sea. To our out most surprise, we saw more than 70 Dolphins. When we were in the sea, it was like we were surrounded by dolphins.The 45 min Early morn Boat ride costed us Rs.250 Per head.  

Shankar, Arvind, Shuaib and Srikanth

We took our bikes and put our wanderers cap on, just rode with not much on our mind for destination. We visited Chapora, from there on it was more like a crime scene investigation. All we did is ride and question people there. What are the sight seeing spots here? what do we get to see there? how to get to this place? and so on.... We covered a lot of places and some of the interesting places are Anjuna Beach, Vagator Beach and Marjim Beach. each one better than the previous. At last at marjim, the water and the beach was so wonderful that we fell in love with it instantly and decided to jump into it. We weren't prepared for it, Shuaib and Shankar bought shorts form a nearby shop and it was get.. set... wet... From there it was back to our room and then back to the Calagute beach for a night walk.

Fort Conquerors

Monday morning we again took a walk at the beach and went to see the Agoda Fort, Without the bikes this time. Spent some time at Agoda and then returned to our room saturated with Goa. Packed our bags and it was the sleeper that was calling us this time.... Bangalore, we were on Tuesday morning.

Agoda Revisited

Pics from Sriki's Cobra Cam

Pics From Arvind's Cam

PS: There are lot of openings in the Motivating and Planning dept., and Md.Shuab will be recruiting. Shuaib will now head a new department in our company: Risk Management. With loosing Rs.1800 and lot of time in Gupshup, As the Global head, I think he has gained experience to manage Risk.

Naveen's Treat !!! Maiya Maiya

30-10-2010

A long pending treat from our very own Naveen. Its been about 4 years since he got married a job, and at last we got what we all deserve, an excellent South Indian Thali for lunch at Maiya's. After a lot of nagging and pressure from the Pirtans, Naveen, our Delivery Manager decided to treat us on 30-10-2010. All of us (Arvind, Ramu, Raghu, Sriki, Shankar, and Shuaib) were ready and there was no update from the Ultimate-Man Ambro and all of us thought this is a April fool's Treat, just like the April fool's Trip that was played well by Naveen.

Apparently Naveen was busy and late Morning we got a call from him and all of us were relieved that we dont have to pay for what we eat. 

The Unlimited Meals that was served there was more than what we could ask for. After lunch all of us were so full that we all sat outside for some while. All our stomachs were about to Burst.

Since he has finished his vital role for his current profile he is now promoted to "Delayed Delivery Manager "from "Delivery Manager". Lets all consider this as a promotion.

Its now time for other pending projects, Pirtans who have not yet delivered will be directly reported to Naveen. So, go ahead and perform your role, all your promotions are waiting.

Ramu's Treat !!! Yummy Yummy

It was yet another celebration at PIRT. Pirtans gathered to celebrate a joyous moment, Ramcharan is now a permanent employee at SAP and he treated Shankar, Naveen, Srikanth, Shuaib and Arvind at Konark. All of us were more than happy to spend sometime together and have a great chat over the lunch. Like usual our meeting started and ended with fun. This fun filled lunch not only had great menu, but good jokes and pranks. It was good to spend some time with all the close ones... though we missed a couple of our friends who are not in town.

First we all met at Konark hotel and had heavy belting of soups, starters, kulchas, parotas, side dishes, puloav, rice dishes, ice cream, cake and sizzlers

The food was perfect and all of us had a verity of dishes and stuffed us with all the things that we could eat.

And not to mention the deserts..

After the heavy food, we took a stroll in commercial street and did a bit of window shopping. We all had bought a gift for Shuaib for his birthday and we couldn't give it to him as he did not turn up for his birthday bash (he also escaped from the birthday bumps). So we went to Ramu's house and there we gifted Shuaib a watch. After having a gala time in Ramcharan's house, we all had a small walk and had Coffee at Hotel Saravana Bhavan. It was time to depart and only thing in everyone's mouth was "when is the next treat and who is treating" and also "when is the next time we all will meet".... 

Hope we have more of such good days in the future.......

* 2 points for all who attended

Wayanad and Nagarhole forest

This again was a early morning departure plan. Arvind, Shuaib, Srikanth, Khalid and Naveen were all Picked up by Shankar in the Toyota Qualis that he had booked and we all left Bangalore before dawn. Shuaib from our Motivating and planning department was fully equipped with a lot of prinouts that had the route and a list of must-visit  places.  Srikanth had brought the main equipment: the Camera, to capture all the nasty things that we do. Naveen, Raghavendra and Arvind were the advisers and helped in decision making, While Khalid was in for everything and did not want to break his head over any issue. Khalid was on duty throughout the trip and had brought 2 official mobiles and a laptop and a Reliance netconnect to work from outdoors, which we used to check scores of the cricket matches.

Our first destination was Edakkal Caves, which is considered as a protected monument by the Department of Archaeology, Kerala. It is said that the caves were inhabited by people about 4000 years back. Trekking to this cave was a up hill task as we had to walk from the parking to the foothill, then we had to climb the hill for about 45 minutes on the occasional rugged steps. We enjoyed this up hill climb as we did not know that the cave is really far away and the cave was at the top of the hill, also the view of the tall trees and company from friends kept us engaged in a lot of talk and fun. After 45 min we reached the entrance of the cave where we had to buy tickets and we thought we had reached the cave and we were wrong. We had to climb the first half of the hill from within inside it, yes! we were climbing inside the hallow hill. We were surrounded by huge boulders and after the climb we came out and the second half we had to climb from outside, at last we reached the cave. After a tiring trek back down, it was time for some tender coconut and pineapple slices.

Trekking inside the hill

Naveen and Arvind investigate the cave carvings, while Shankar and Raghavendra pay attention

By the time we reached Wayanad, we had made a list of places to see and visit in an order with the help of the map and tourist spot list that Shuaib had got. But all our plans went in vain as we were denied entry through a particular city. There was some kind of Bandh and no one was allowed to enter and the whole town was empty, with few policemen and some goons. We had to get back and there are no alternate roads or parallel roads that we can take as most of these roads are on the hills and there are only one way. All of a sudden we were left with nothing to do, but return. So, the number of places which we had to visit reduced and we made new plans on the fly.

Waterfalls is always a great place to enjoy and we did not want to miss out on that. Next we visited one of the famous water falls of Wayanad, Soojipara Falls. To reach this falls we had to take a 10 minute walk  and another 30 minute trek. But reaching this natural beauty was worth it and we all had a dip in the water.

It was already too much of traveling and exercising to our legs for one day. By the time we go to city, the sun had set and we had to find a place to stay. We munched a bit in a cake shop and then we had dinner from a Udipi hotel, to get to the hotel we again walked a lot. Thought we did not get a great place to stay, we could watch ending of a Cricket match, which India won with an exciting ending.

Next day we got up early and set off to visit other places. First we went to Kuruva Island, an Island formed due to separation of a river into two parts and that again joins to form a single river. We got to see some birds on our way. The roads were horrible and stony. From there we went to The Pazhassi Raja Tomb (below), which was the last place visited in Kerala.

 We were all a little disappointed about not visiting many places in Kerala because of the bandh. So, Naveen suggested we visit Irrupu falls on our way to Bangalore. There was a lot of walking and hiking to reach the falls. We had a good time here, both taking photos and posing for it.We were quite surprised to see a swarm of Butterflies that were not affected by our presence and were fluttering by us.

Late afternoon, we entered Nagahole forest reserve. Though it was a bit early, we took a Wild life Safari. We got to see Spotted Deer, Monitor lizard, Sambar, Tortoise, Wild Boar, Elephant, Black monkey and many birds. After the safari, we were driving through the forest and we saw 2 elephants on the road side and our driver stopped near them so that we could see them and take a picture. All of a sudden the elephant turned and spread it's ears and gave a small charge and we all had some nerve rattling moment before we left from there.

A wild Sambar @ Nagarhole forest that had become friendly with humans.

Photos Part I

Photos Part II

Photos Part III

Srikanth's Birthday !!! :)

10 July

Srikanth turns a year older, and today is the day that he seeks blessings from elders and god. 

PIRT wishes him best in all his endeavours and success in all his attempts to excellence. May this year be better than the last and may god bless you.

Hope this year brings lot of luck and experience that makes you a better person than you are now..

"Happy Birthday Shriki"

Make your own digital greeting

Day II & Day III: Nature and Scenic Beauty of Valpari

After a great start at Parambikulam Forest, we were of to Valparai. We stopped at Aanaimalai for lunch and here is where we had the best Parota ever. The milestones showed us only the distance to Valparai and not the time that would take us to get there. The roads were good and we reached the foot of a hill and here is where we noticed that the 60Km drive has 40 hair pin curves. Though it was time taking, the views from up above was breath taking. We crossed through Alyaar Dam and when we were at Loam's View, the huge dam looked like a long line.

 Alyaar Dam

View from Loam's View

We stopped at Monkey falls, we did not have the time to have fun in the water. It was just a small break.

The best part of the drive was the "mist covering area". As and when we were going up the hill the weather got cooler. It was about 5 PM and we were still going up. The light was reducing rapidly , we turned on the car lights and there were many more hair pins to cover. After some time it was bright again. We actually entered the mist covering area. Once we were a little away from it we could see the region and it was very fascinating.

 After few curves we were back in to the mist covering region. When we were out of it, we entered a region which had either side of the ghat covered with never ending tea plantations.

We halted at Valparai for the night. Hunted for a room to stay and then a nice veg place for dinner, we got both without much of searching as the town was a small place. At the room Shankar was bleeding non stop from between his toes and he had not seen it nor felt the pain. We assumed that a leech was responsible for that.

We guys wanted some adventure and went out for a drive at night in the lonely slopes of Valparai. People there had told us that if we were lucky we could see leopards, and every now and then the leopards come to the town. Arvind wanted to see them, and he convinced Shuaib and all of us left off on a long drive on the ghats. We got to see a wild hare (rabbit).

Seeing the scenic beauty of Valparai was not sufficient for us, next day morning we were off to see more. We visited the Sholayer Dam, Nirar Dam,  Karl Max Statue and Loam's View. We left Valparai early in the morning, when it still was drizzling. The roads were all washed and the lush tea plantations looked like a green velvet cloth spread across the hills. Both the Dams were huge and the reservoir that they had created was a must watch landscape. Even at 10 AM it was like how it was at 7 AM. The weather was splendid. Nirar was the 5th dam that we saw on the trip, and the others were Parambikulam Dam, Alyaar Dam, Sholayer Dam and a small dam in Parambikulam forest. Other than the last Dam the others were really huge dams and the we all were allowed to enter only upto a mark, except for Nirar dam. Here we were allowed to go anywhere and we went right in middle of the dam and we could see the channels. We could also go down the dam. There were hardly any people in and around the dam. So we got a Great view of the entire place. On our way we got to see an elephant too.

 Sholayer Dam

Nirar Dam

 

Nirar Dam reservoir

We came across a small falls and it was time for a small break and from here on it was drive, drive and only drive. We were back to namma Bengaluru by 9:30 PM.

Valparai at its best

Click here to catch Day I and day II action.