Lavasa, The Planned Hill City of India

For some Lavasa is a planned hill city near Pune, for some it's a good investment place and for others it's a place which violated the laws of Environment.

For me I would say who cares about the Lavasa City, personally I think Lavasa city is not as great as we see it on-line, also it's terribly expensive and they levy a 17% City tax on everything which is already over priced and heavily taxed.
The city is still under construction and not as well maintained as the road to Lavasa for whatever reasons.

What I loved the most is the route/road/drive to Lavasa city from Pune (after we cross the dam, that separates the whole area from Pune city), it is lush green with different shades of green and very beautiful and scenic. The pictures you see here in this blog are real and perhaps don't do the justice to the scene as it was taken from a mobile camera of 8 mg pixel.

Population in that area is relatively less and the whole place (not the Lavasa city) is so green and clean that I forgot for a while that I was in India. :| It was beautiful enough to take your breath away when you see those beautiful green mountains and river. For once I really thought that " really India is beautiful and not at all dirty and overpopulated".

The river and lakes are also very clean and very blue, the kind of blue that we used to paint and imagined how a river would be in our childhood. I still remember we all used to have a standard painting with mountains and river flowing from those mountains, birds flying above in the sky and a Sun (either setting or rising). Trust me once you visit Lavasa you would see exactly such scene and love it. One could also feel that we never did justice to drawings or paintings, in reality nature is much more pure and beautiful.

So if you want to visit this place do not bother to book a hotel in Lavasa city just hire a cab from Pune and go there for a day and return in the evening.

One can enjoy the water rides there which closes by 5 Pm, but I must admit water rides in Goa are way better and enjoyable than the ones in Lavasa, because water rides on sea/ocean is much more fun than on calm controlled lake as in Lavasa.

The Lavasa boulevard is also enjoyable in a good weather and one can try various food items (which is again over priced, but I think we can live with that for once). Something worth trying is the chips that they server in a swirl. chips with a twist :)

You can also catch a Lavasa tour bus which costs Rs.100/person but then you can take as many rides you want with the same ticket on that day. One can catch Lavasa tour bus near the boulevard or Lavasa Information centre.

One can also try the nature trail, perhaps if you want to go for a nature trail you need to go early or stay in the City but if you are not planning any trekking, its best you visit Lavasa for a day and return in the evening.
If you are planning to drive and are an experienced driver I feel Ghats are not that tricky and roads are good to return little late in the evening after you see all the lights reflecting in the lake at twilight.

I must say its worth visiting once. I had been to Lavasa in early September and it was really very green and pretty.

Love the green and clean India and wish that one day whole of India would be like that (without extra Tax :| ).
Cheers :)

A Beautiful Day

I live in a place called Bangalore. Here if you feel hot and sticky for couple of days you can very well expect a nice little shower which renders the whole place greener and cooler, often accompanied with the pink breeze that blows by, full of wonderful fragrances from the flowers of nearby trees/plants. It would leave you overwhelmed by the beauty of nature.

This is the best season of the year, onset of summer (spring) one can see lot of pink and purple blooms. These trees are so beautiful and the weirdest thing is that these trees have very little green leaves and are rather full of beautiful flowers. Probably one of the Biology lessons where they said flowers also make food for the trees is applicable in this case.

The roads where these trees are lined look just awesome.

Today is one of those days, when it rains for a little while and renders everything Green and Cool.

I work with an IT company and we have a beautiful green campus. There are total 7 Offices in Bangalore this is the 7th one.

I noticed this campus when I came for interview and it immediately gave me a feeling that I want to work here. With God’s grace I got selected and was offered a Job here and was happy to join.

Initially when I joined I was not assigned to any project, I would leverage the time to drink in the beauty of campus but once I was put to work I don’t remember when last I really enjoyed the campus.

Today again when I am in-between projects I got the time to enjoy the campus from the rooftop cafeteria while having my late lunch. The weather outside is awesome and I just wished if only I had wings and I could fly. :)

From the place where I was sitting I could see vast green lawns and beyond that is a small stoned pathway where one can walk which is lined with beautiful Green trees with Pink, Yellow and red blossoms all around. Way away from traffic of the busy roads. It was a kind of solace straight from heaven. I wished I could just share it with all my loved ones just the way I was experiencing it at that moment, the first thought was take a picture but that’s when I realized that, what I was witnessing could not be captured within a camera (or may be my friend Falguni would do it better if she were here). Everybody has a gift to express, for I like to describe things in words and my friend likes to take pictures and some paint it and so on.

I must say it’s just not the beauty or greenery but it’s about how I felt, the peace within, the feeling was so good that I wanted to capture everything along with the scenery. My feelings, my thoughts my happiness the peace I felt at that moment and the 360 degree of the scenery which no camera that I know of can capture.
It also made me feel that I must learn the names of all the trees around me to describe the things better in words. Well that’s my next agenda on the list.

With growing technology where machines precisely understand what we want to do (think of zooming or moving files with a touch on an iPad or any touch Pad or touch phones for that matter) I wondered if we can achieve this too, where one doesn’t only capture the scenery but also captures emotions, feelings and thoughts that emanate by a mere look at that place/scenery.

One last thing that I want to say is, I think if we could drink the beauty around us every moment of every day it will make life so beautiful. I wish all the work places have such scenic beauty that would make going to work much more happening. Please take time to admire and enjoy the petty but incredibly beautiful things like trees, flowers and birds that are there around us all the time, which normally goes unnoticed due to work pressure/stress and other such tensions that we carry with us in our minds all the time. We forget that it's kind of a cycle. If you enjoy the beauty or things around, it can even be a smile of a person (need not be green plush scenery always), that would make you enjoy everything through the day and that will reduce pressure/stress and would help you further enjoy everything around. The cycle goes otherwise also if you forget the good around you; you will always be miserable and would never be able to enjoy things around you.

To all the readers of this blog. Happy Life.

PS: This is not the picture from my office but still reminds me of the blossoms I was talking about.

Enjoy :)