Review: Squisito

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Ok ... Its not a movie ... Its a restaurant.

It was Janani's birthday yesterday and as a part of the celebrations we decided to dine-out. After a long time me and Janani were going to try a new restaurant - instead of repeating our regular favourite's Malaka Spice etc .. So it was Squisito in Koregaon Park.

What I specially liked is that it was exclusively Vegetarian. Apart from its speciality Italian it also had some Lebanese and Mexican options sprinkled onto the menu. The place was smaller than what i had expected but had a nice ambiance. We had couple of starters - oven baked crispy mushrooms and falafel - both of which I really liked. The quantity of the starter was also really filling ... it actually made us a bit nervous because we had ordered 3 more items for the main course - A Pizza (thin crust with spicy toppings), a tortellini pasta and a Mexican rice dish. Fortunately for us all of us were hungry so we were able to finish all of that above. The pasta was especially creamy and out-of-the-world. To top it up all, we had a Chocolate Bomb for dessert. :)

All in all - I was thrilled with the food and was overjoyed to see the many options available to us vegetarian mortals. My mind filled with all the flavours of the food, my taste buds were thanking me for the Squisite food that they had received that evening.

A must experience - I give it a 4.5 / 5 ...

The Acid Test: Tikona Fort Trek

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Its been frustrating last 6 months recovering from my ankle injury that I got in Nov 2010. I have been wanting to get back to my normal "active" self. After lots of patience and physiotherapy, finally I decided to test myself to a trek to see if I am really back to normal. Thanks to Subbu with whom I have been planning this trek for sometime now, finally happened today. It was Tikona Fort. The verdict: I did very well :) ... I am there ... about 95% there !! :)

The Goal - Tikona Fort

The detailed information about how to get to Tikona Fort has been covered so well in this blog entry here by Rajaram (a really awesome blogger), which has been a primary reason for us to choose this fort.

Rajaram so frivolously mentioned "This is an easy trek" ... either he is more active than me !! or he is a regular on treks. I wouldn't classify this as a easy trek by any means. This would be a medium difficulty trek in my perspective. Being the first trek of my life, this did take a toll on my stamina.

Since it was just me and Subbu we managed to start pretty early and get to Tikona by 8:00 in the morning. Thanks to the rain last night and the over cast weather, it was a perfect setting for a nice trek. Precise directions given by Rajaram made sure that we reached exactly at the same place where they had also started their trek. First 10-15 mins of climbing made both me and Subbu realise that we have been out of action for a long time and that our stamina had taken a hit. So we decided to take it a bit slowly. Small steps at a time, we were slowly but surely getting there. What looked like an audacious goal at first, now slowly looked achievable as we were climbing. The wonderful scenery was adding towards us forgetting our tiredness and enjoying the beauty and sounds of nature.

We did pass through 3 temples on the way to the top. First one was Chapetdan Maruti ... named because of Lord Hanuman's pose to slap the devil who is at his feet. Pretty interesting !! Next one was Tuljadevi Mandir. At this temple there was a rishi muni  residing there, was also responsible for maintaining the temple. The final Tryambakeshwar temple was on the top of the fort.

Temples on the way to the top

When I reached the top, the view from the top was truly a worthy trophy of our effort. It also gave me back my confidence that I could get back to my "active" past. So I look forward to many more such treks in the future.

I did take lots of snaps. Here are a few good ones that I am sharing. Mostly Panoramic views.

On the way back we decided to "chill out" by taking bath in a river stream. It was so refreshing and cool that it took out all the tiredness of the trek we just finished and we were ready to head back to Pune fresh and fine. We stopped by for a delicious Gujarati Thali lunch at Lonavla and we were on our way back to Pune.

At the end, a day well spent, reminiscent with fond memories.

More Birds !!

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While the viewers may be tired with the monotony of the photos in my blog ... but I am not tired at all "shooting" birds around my apartment .. so here's some more ... different perspective this time ... different activities .... and also in pairs !! :)

I am loving it !!

New Laptop purchased

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We have purchased a Dell Inspiron N4010 for our home usage. I read the review here saying "Dell has assembled a slick update to the Inspiron line that, despite a few shortcomings, will let students and home users do anything they need to without breaking the bank." ... I liked it ... That is exactly what I want ...

Hopefully, now I am going to try and be a bit more regular in the Online world ... :) ... Blog regularly ... Show up on facebook and gtalk more regularly.

Catch you all online more often now !! :)

Some more nice photos ...

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So, I have been doing a lot of observing after the arrival of this camera ... Its actually fun just sitting in the balcony doing nothing much and just observing ... I have actually realised that there are quite some nice birds just around my houses and if I am patient I can get some great snaps (though I don't know some of the birds that I am capturing .. May be someone can help if they know) ... So here are some pictures I took recently.

There is also a picture of a moon rising one evening ...

And some more playing around with light painting. Recently, for Vishu, obviously we have to setup a Vishu Kani. A prominent part of the flower arrangement is the Konna Pu (or flower). Now, due to circumstances I was not able to arrange for one for my Vishu Kani.So I thought I'd use some light painting so achieve the effect. So here goes ... (Ok ... No laughing !! )

I am also trying to capture a yellow bird that has been flying around my house but is too fast so I have been unsuccessful so far. Will share that soon once I catch it .. very soon. I am determined. 

Sathya Sai Baba

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Sathya Sai Baba passed away this Sunday. My mother was an ardent follower. She has told me instances of when she had got surprise darshans of him and at times when she least expected. I believe my sister was also named Shanti after his influence. Though, its another story that she is anything but "Shanti" (or "peace" in english) ... :)

I am not much of his devotee. But I believe that he is doing a lot of good for the society as a whole. Be it his Super-specialty hospitals that serve the poor for free or be it the water-irrigation and other projects that he has single-handedly funded or be it the wonderful initiation that a child gets to good things in life by attending his Balavikas initiatives that are run all over the country.
This Balavikas initiative is a very interesting initiative that is being run by the disciples of Saibaba. They teach children basic values of life with content drawn from ancient scriptures, through the methodology of story telling, enacting plays and singing Bhajans etc. I have attended these classes as a kid and in fact when one gets a good teacher, the whole experience turns out to be good fun, as well as makes for well-rounded learning experience.
Many of my relatives are staunch disciples of Sathya Sai Baba. Overall, I think he has done enough good to the society and impacted lives of millions of people. I have been to his Ashrams in Whitefield, Bangalore and taken his Darshan and I have seen that there are lots of devotees – who have reshaped their lives to be part of his movement and serve the society in someway. If someone is able to influence so many people in a positive way there is definitely something great about him. I hope that even when he is not there his wonderful work is continued by his disciples.
But then - there are also some people like Taslima Nasreen who want to make a whole mockery of other people’s faiths and beliefs. This is what I think about what she has to say. One should also not make fun of other’s faith and beliefs. Just because one has a pen doesn’t mean someone can go about writing anything that one feels like. I think this only proves that she is not interested in the issue, she is only interested in getting some media limelight and audience’s time-share. And in the end, it comes down to these kinds of cheap tactics. I think, no one forced her into having a belief or a faith about him .. so if she didn’t believe in him then she could just leave it alone and get on with life.

So as I said earlier, I sincerely hope that his devotees take this movement to much greater heights and keep up the great work that has been going on.