Girish's Blog

Driving in Bangalore is a pleasure - from 6:30 AM to 9:30 AM and from 6 PM to 11 PM. No, it's not the potholed roads, or the random unmarked speed-bumps, or the yellow-board Indicas who believe traffic rules don't apply to them, or the two-wheelers streaking between the sluggishly moving cars or the big red Volvo buses in Brownian motion. It's the FM radio station Amritavarshini, 100.1 FM. Amritavarshini, is probably the country's only classical music station and it's a pleasure to listen to Hindustani and Carnatic music uninterrupted by commercials, with the RJ speaking briefly and in chaste Kannada to introduce the program. There are no ads promoting the channel, no RJs speaking in mongrel tongues and no agenda except allowing the audience to forget the misery that is the Bangalore roads and listen to some great music. Here's hoping that 100.1 FM remains funded, is able to extend their operating hours and continues to play great music for the years to co

Henry David Thoreau, in his 1854 book, Walden , narrates his experience of living in solitude for two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst the woodland. While we didn't have the luxury of spending as much time around our neighborhood Kaikondrahalli Lake , this Saturday morning walk around the lake was a delight with the variety of birds, bird calls and nature on exhibition. We reached the lake at around 9 AM by when most of the joggers and serious bird watchers with the telescopic zoom lenses have left. We start the walk with the call and sighting of a White Cheeked Barbet.The barbet is rarely seen outside the thick green foliage of mature trees and it is a rare sighting for us to see it perched on an electric wire. A White Throated Kingfisher flies to its perch - a wall on the edge of the lake and a little egret takes flight, splashing along its liquid runway. We walk towards the lake and