Athirappilly-Sholayar-Valparai-Chinnar-Munnar Road TripTuesday, August 4, 2015 My father-in-law was home for a week and he along with us wanted to meet my uncle who is in Pollachi. Me and my wife hadn't been to his place after marriage, which is considered to be a custom. Straight away I made plans to try the new route which i had not been through. In addition to that, we also planned to go Munnar from there and make it an extended 2 day trip. So the route was : Tripunithrua -> Ezhattumugham -> Athirappilly -> Sholayar ->Valpparai -> Aliyar -> Pollachi -> Udumalpett -> Chinnar -> Eravikulam -> Munnar -> Tripunithura This is probably the best route in South India. 2 states and 4 main types of vegetations. In fact I guess Chinnar it self had 6 sub vegetations. We were off to see tall trees, hence we kept off from the tall buildings of the city and took the western route via Ezhattumugham to Athirappilly.
We started from Athirappilly by around 3, reached the checkpost in another 15 minutes. And then, its probably only in 5 minutes that you could see a vehicle coming opposite you. Before reaching Sholayar, I stopped in a few placed to record a few ambiences (Will post them after editing). We stopped near the Sholayar valve house.   Started driving again. As we approached the border we started to feel hungry. When we reached the check post, I asked an officer there as to where I could get some food. He said "There are a few hotels nearby but all places are shut to express condolances to APJ Abdul Kalam who died the previous." Even though we had to stay hungry till Pollachi, we never felt that, as we enjoyed the whole stretch. The 40 hair-pin bends (probably the highest number after Kolli Hills) overlooking the Aliyar Reservoir extremely beautiful. As it was almost dark, we didnt stop by the monkey falls.
The change from here to the green Kerala was quite interesting
Having seen an evergreen forest, a semi deciduous, tea plantations, reservoirs, dams and waterfalls on the previous day, Munnar pretty much had nothing new to serve. But still, we did enjoy the place. Had some good time there and headed back home by 7.
Kochi - Inner Ring Road PlanSunday, August 2, 2015 Kochi is fast growing metropolitan. Say, a family who wishes to go from Thoppumpady to Lulu Mall via car either needs to go through the city or go Kundannoor and take the current Bypass road to Edappally. Imagine you wish to travel to Kakkanad from Thevara during the evening peak hour, the traffic from Petta to Irumbanam could be a real pain. It must have been pretty evident from my post "My metro rail plan for Kochi" as to how much I dream of a better Kochi, with better roads, and better connectivity. On the same lines I have developed a plan for a ring road not really around the city, so lets call it an inner ring road. The route Kundannur - Thevara Road >>All roads in black are existing roads in which some are 4 lane whereas some are not. All roads need to be converted into 4 lane roads. All marked in red are addition constructions. Bridge (From Willingdon to Vallarpadam) A bridge from Willingdon to Vallarppadam would be a real boon to people who live in Thevara, Fort Kochi, Thoopumpady etc to reach Ernakulam. The bridge along with proposed road will definitely help container trucks to reach the Container terminal faster. In fact one of many reasons why the Container terminal is at a loss is the road connectivity to it. A bridge on the lines of the Mumbai Sea-Link, how beautiful would it be for the Kochi Skyline? Imagine!
Road Link (From Kalamassery to HMT) This road should be a continuation of the ICT(Container terminal Road) from Kalamassery. There are few houses in the area. But a small strip of aqusition for a better cause would not be bad. An underground road is also an option i guess. Road Link (From Karingachira till Andhakara Canal) Thats pretty much a barren land so land acquisition is not a big deal. Bridge above Andhakara Kanal This in fact is not a new idea. This was actually an official plan once back in 2010. In fact, this area is so crowded that, none of the existing roads can be widened. If this turns true, a major chunk of the traffic blocks in Tripunithura can be avoided. All tanker lorries from the petroleum companies can reach Kundannoor without even touching Tripunithura town. All traffic towards Kottayam can routed via Petta onto this road. The interactive map of the inner ring road is proposed below. If this can be done, Kochi can be proud of a 47 kilometer long Inner Ring Road. Hopeful Kochiite [Mapid = m8vPQNgEJb] Branding Exercise for Kokos Oil(Kaula)Saturday, July 4, 2015 The shoots were done on three different days on three different locations. As usual no location recee. In Venugopal's film it started raining slightly in the post lunch session. They were processed using Izotope Dialogue Denoiser. Also recorded some rain along with it(Bonus). I had my wife as the foley artist during the sound design. Recording the bites and cruches at midnight was interesting. Lena LENA'S surprise visit with KOKOS coconut oil G VENUGOPAL's Surprise Visit with KOKOS coconut oil TINY TOM's surprise visit with KOKOS coconut oil Indulekha Bringa Selfi Bottle (Tamil - Telgu)Saturday, May 23, 2015
Yet another interesting 2 days of shoot for Indulekha Bringa Oil. 2 days and 6 commercials in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. The films were set in such a way that the certain audio goes in sync and as vo. so we recorded all in Sync first and then our smart on location editor Eby would edit up the roughly and dub the dialogues again as a voice overs. In order to record voice overs we used a selected a room in the resort to be converted into to temporary studio. We closed the doors and windows tight and created a dead space using two 8inch foam mattresses. The third side was covered with two bath towels. It pretty well curbed the reverb.
Tamil Indulekha Bringha Selfie Tamil Telugu
Indulekha Bhringa OilSaturday, September 6, 2014 Elements - Kerala Tourism FilmSaturday, July 5, 2014 Modi-ism ; My takeTuesday, August 20, 2013 Now please don't call me communal nor a congi-agent.
A friend of mine re-shared something on facebook yesterday which said
“Its been 2 days that I’ve been thinking of Modi. The patriotic bunch in the country believes that Gujarat is the only state in the country that is developing…” And she researched 9 stats and in the conclusion she asks “What does Modi and his fans mean by development?”
Even I have been seeing my uncles, friends and colleagues
posting on facebook and twitter; for and against Modi. Let me ask, what is
wrong with Modi? Is it that he doesn’t speak good English? Or is it that he
walked out of a Karan Thapar interview? Or because he kept mum when 700 odd
Muslims and 200 odd Hindus were killed in Gujarat. Erm, yes, there is something
wrong with him. But, no one still has got the evidence to, as Mani Shankar Iyer
once said to get him hanged and then released with a mercy petition, as he was
against capital punishment.
Ignore the killing of 100s of Muslim shop owners. Ignore the
brutal slaughter of some Gujju Congress MP or MLA and the gang rape of his
family women. May be Narendra Modi wasn’t strong enough then to curtail them
from happening. I don’t know. But something that I learnt from the facebook and
twitter posts of my cousins, friends and colleagues is that even though whether
he was influential in the pogrom or not I should support ‘NaMo’ just because he
sky-rocketed the developmental figures in Gujarat. But did he really do so?
The lady criticised Modi in the above said FB post is a
Mallu. In fact Gujarat Model is often compared to Kerala Model in terms of
development. Taking these two points even I would like to compare both the
states on the basis of GSDP, Per capita NSDP, educational, social and social
welfare shares in the various budgets.
Now lets start with per capita NSDP. Before Mr. Narendra
Modi took over as the CM of Gujarat the per capita was Rs 18864 [1]. After more
than a decade of Modi rule as of last year it is Rs 89668 [2]. It is a good
amount, well above the national per capita of Rs 61564. In fact the figures for
Kerala for 2000 and 2012 are Rs 19461 [3] and Rs 83725 [4] respectively. Interestingly,
so is the change for some of the major states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Kerala, Uttar Pradesh grew at the same rate around 14%.
Now, onto GSDP. Gujarats GSDP for 2004 was Rs 216Cr and by
2009 it is Rs 323Cr. Not really good for Kerala, nor the rest of the stated we
compared above. When Gujarat’s GSDP grew at a rate of 14% rest of them were
around 10%. Thanks to the industrial growth in Gujarat which shot up at around
7.5%. Congratulation Mr. Modi. Even that is with 5 times the area as that of
Kerala and just 2 times the population the per capita income is almost the same
as Kerala’s.
But is just one sector that’s all about development? How
much has the state concentrated on the other sectors. See this here. The
average share of the budget spent on education by Gujarat across the Modi rule
is around 12%. Whereas the same as that of Kerala is 17%. So are the cases with heath and public
service. Stats are given below.
 
Now, some miscellaneous points:: Gujarat is a state that bears the 3rd highest
debt in the country after Poshcim Bongo and Uttar Pradesh [5]. In fact, during the Modi rule the debt
multiplied by 4 times.While taking Human Development Index into consideration, Gujarat is still at the 14th position [6]. The female literacy rate in Kerala as of 2001 is 87% and in 2011 is 100%, whereas in Gujarat in 2001 it was 60% [7]. Which means during the Modi rule in Gujarat the growth was only 3%, whereas in Kerala it was 13%.
All my online buddies praise NaMo for fantastic Gujju roads and its transit system. Do you know what? During the Modi rule period till 2009 the change in the length of roads in Gujarat is negligible (0.54%), whereas in Kerala it was around 7%. The point to be noted in case of roads is that the growth of roads in Gujarat were mainly urban. Growth of rural roads in Kerala, Bihar during the period was at 9%, in Andhra Pradesh was at 12%, whereas in Gujarat it was at 0.03% [8] If you go by Tavleen Singh's argument, Karunanidhi extemporaneous speaking skills. He was arrogant, doesn't speak English on national media , he has brought in investments to the state from various countries and has been successful for the past four decades. Now in a democracy, shall I ask ms. Singh, can only a person from a national party be a prime minister? In the same sense how the 'non-delhi/dynasty/non-english speaking' tag is put up on Modi, it is put up on not just many leaders, in fact even on prominent regional parties. Modi has done lot of positives during his period, definitely. Industrial growth, better voter turnout, electricity production, etc. are just few among them. So, YES Modi might be a good(shrewd) administrator, but after all, for what are we developing towards? Now, what is his proven track record? Is it on the basis of the above mentioned data? Taking just academics into consideration and ignoring 2002 completely, is he the only Prime Ministerial stuff that India has right now? Lets see!!!
References:
[All figures] – “Development
trends in selected Indian States”- by S.Narayan
[5] - http://www.indiatvnews.com/business/india/modi-s-gujarat-bears-the-third-highest-debt-burden-after-bengal--5216.html [6] - http://indiatext.net/hdi-india/ [7] - http://www.census2011.co.in/census/state/ [8] - http://mospi.nic.in/Mospi_New/upload/Infra_stat_2010/1.ch_road.pdf
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Nikhil Varma
Sound Design - Voice Over - Greater Kochi - Film Buff - Cricket - Travel - Not a strict ideologist. |
