Arun Rajagopal

Bharathapuzha or Nila is the second longest river in Kerala. Bharathapuzha means River (Puzha) of Bharathamba (Goddess mother of Bharath – India).

The allusion behind the name is that the river feeds people like their own mother – (the water is pure and can be used for drinking, irrigation or other purposes).

Bharathapuzha originates in the Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu and flows west through the three districts of Palakkad, Thrissur and Malappuram and finally meets the Arabian Sea at Ponnani.

Nila is very close to hearts of the people of Kerala, owing to its historical and cultural significance. Many of Kerala’s greatest creative geniuses such as Kunchan Nambiar (a satirical poet and founder of the Ottamthullal art form), Malayalam writers M. T. Vasudevan Nair, M.Govindan, V. K. N. and O. V. Vijayan have been inspired by her beauty.

Kerala Kalamandalam, a major learning center for Indian performing arts is situated in the village of Cheruthuruthy on the banks of Nila. The famous Ayurveda treatment centre of Kottakkal is adjacent to the Nila. It is also home to several famous Hindu temples as well. Legend goes that those cremated on the banks of the Bharathapuzha achieve salvation.

A train journey over the Bharathapuzha is a very nostalgic experience for Keralites. Many times I’ve seen travelers gaze out of the windows admiring the river that embodies the soul and spirit of North Kerala. It is not uncommon to hear travelers give impromptu lectures about the history of the river and berate the recent man-made ecological problems that have led to its drying up.

The river flows to its fullest only during the monsoon season in the last few years, and this year Kerala has had a particularly bad monsoon and you can see the river much dried up.

The British laid the current railway track parallel to the course of the river from Parli in Palakkad through Shoranur (a major railway junction in North Kerala) and up to Tirunnavaya (the last station on the line). The railway line is thus an inseparable part of the contemporary history of Nila.

I recently went on a rail-fanning trip to Bharathapuzha. It has been one of my greatest wishes to visit the banks of the river and check out the trains gliding over the majestic rail bridges over the Nila, ever since I was a kid.

Highlights of the trip included up and down rides on the Bharathapuzha railway bridges on the Ernakulam-Shoranur Passenger and Shoranur-Trivandrum Venad Express (check out video), a dip in the river beneath the bridges where I had oodles of fun waving out to passengers in the trains, a visit to a local toddy shop and finally some action packed rail-fanning at Shoranur Junction and Bharathapuzha (check out the videos of the diesel and electric action).

Needless to say, with the sun playing hide-and-seek, intermittent showers and constant rail action, the atmosphere was simply enticing. Indeed, one of my best rail-fanning journeys ever!

Enjoy the videos!

Here are a few pics from a journey over Bharathapuzha in December 2006.

Express trains on the Bharathapuzha Railway Bridge

Freight train (push-pull) action at Shoranur Junction

Parasuram Express at Shoranur Junction

WDM3D action at Shoranur Junction

WAP4 action at Shoranur Junction

The WAP-4 hauled 2644 Hazrat Nizamuddin - Trivandrum Swarna Jayanti Express on a magnificent curve between Gwalior and Sandalpur on 1 February 2008. It was a burning hot day and I had an affable railway worker from Gwalior to give me company in the deserted coach. Enjoy the ride!

Here are 2 mash-ups of my rail-fanning adventures across India in 2006 & 2007.

Highlights:

• Mangalore bound Parasuram Express bleating its horn at Valapattanam
• Speeding through a Mumbai local station
• Trainspotting at Varanasi
• Konkan Jan Shatabdi at Divankhavati
• Overtaking a MG train at Kollam outer
• WCAM/WAG banker freight action on the ghats at Igatpuri
• Mumbai bound Ratnagiri Superfast Express entering Jalgaon
• Cucumber seller at Jalgaon
• High-speed rail action / crossings in the Kollam-Kayankulam stretch and Kannur
• Footplating on the WAP4
• RORO train on Konkan Railways
• Double-headed WDM2 freight action after Madgaon
• Friendly railway staff on Konkan Railway
• Kerala Express spotted at Aluva and Kollam outer

The background score in this video is from Androsphynx & TechnoDaftpunk, but I have also preserved the original sound from the clipss so that you can hear the train beats and the loco horns.

The background score of this video is a song from the Tamil movie Aran. No train beats, just rail action!

Hope you enjoy them!

The Brand Alphabet, originally uploaded by InThePictureDesign.co.uk.

Advertising is a creative tool to sell a product.
Can’t agree better with this definition by maverick Indian adman Bharat Dhabolkar.

I love these recent commercials from Vodafone India promoting their value added services. The best thing about them is that you don’t know what they lead to till the last frame, which makes you hooked on to the commercial. This kind of storytelling looks very refreshing and entertaining on TV.

The WAP4 is one of my favorite electric locos. (Well, I’ve an internal tussle going on for the favorite spot between the WDM2 and the WAP4, but that can wait later).

Here’s a video of my first ever footplate* ride on a WAP4 in Kerala in 2007. The ride was awesome as we cruised along lush greenery. Check out the assistant loco pilot call out the signals. Creating this video required some deft editing skills, especially since I didn’t want to show the loco drivers. Windows Movie Maker rocks. Enjoy the ride.

Footplating
To ride in the cab of a locomotive, from the old term footplate from steam days, referring to the horizontal surface projecting from the locomotive frame, on which the loco cab was constructed. Although diesels and electrics do not have a footplate like that, the terminology persists.
Source: http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-jargon.html

Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 is a popular Indian Television singing competition… which I don’t follow :). However, the entreaties of a colleague at work recently made me notice Raja Hasan, a singer of great promise who is a finalist on this year’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge.

When Sudhaji (Sudha Janardhan), my colleague at work, who is also a hardcore fan of Raja Hasan requested me to listen to his songs and write a post on my blog asking viewers of Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007  or supporters of Raja Hasan to vote for him online, it was a request I could not refuse. I was supposed to write this post 2 days ago, but with mound loads of work, it simply never happened. So here I’m going gaga over Raja Hasan at a fancy airport lounge in Doha!

Listen to Raja Hasan’s amazing voice:

 
If you like Raja Hasan’s music, please vote for him by clicking here. Please note that voting closes on  Saturday October 13, 8 AM. Visit the following link for Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge website on rediff.com. Click here to visit the official Raja Hasan Blog.

Um, I just got to Doha an hour ago. I’ve a few more hours to catch my connecting flight to Bangkok. (I’ve told you about my 7 day backpacking trip to Thailand and Malaysia, right?) Doha International Airport is amazing and I really love the Oryx Lounge from where I’m writing this post. Oryx Lounge has great facilities for travellers in transit who want to unwind at the airport. Their net connection is great, the snack bar looks sumptuous and the attendant just handed me towels for my shower. Great comfort and convenience for 6 hours at just 90 Qatari Riyals ( 24.7 USD)!!!

My Qatar Airways flight from Muscat was awesome. Loved those soft, fluffy seats that sent me and the cute kid who sat next to me to snoozeland. My flight to Bangkok is on an A330 and that means - personal AVOD (audio video on demand) - don’t know which movie I will choose, there are at least a dozen I want to watch from what they offer.

Um, I’m gonna put the brakes on blogging now, need to do some travel research on Thailand and Malaysia… will be back soon! And Sudhaji, hope this post makes your day today!

Another Onam passed by. And I was just thinking that every year it just gets better and better. Before I get into details, here’s a little backgrounder on Onam for a lot of my blogger friends who may not know about this festival.

Onam is an annual harvest festival, celebrated mainly in the south Indian state of Kerala. It is a popular festival among Malayalees, and falls during the month of Chingam (August-September as per the Gregorian calendar), the first month of the Malayalam calendar and lasts for ten days. Traditionally celebrated as a harvest festival, mythologically it is linked to Malayalee-Hindu folktales. However Onam is celebrated by people of all religions.

In Muscat, I celebrate Onam twice. One is a private celebration on the actual Thiruvonam day (August 27). This is the day I come to work dressed in the traditional clothes (shirt and mundu mostly). A good part of the day is spent in connecting with near and dear friends around the world and exchanging greetings. Come afternoon, I’m ready to tuck into the best lunch of the year – the Onasadya or the Onam feast which is a delightful spread of some of yummiest Keralite vegetarian dishes served on a green plantain leaf.

This was my first course of Onasadya this year. It was followed by three more servings and helpings of two kinds of payasam (dessert). Boy, I can eat. Hats off to Rakesh and Bina - my very endearing hosts this year. For dinner, I had another sadya, but this time a more toned down celebration of food.

Enjoying the Onam feast…

The second celebration was a few days later, in fact on the first Saturday after Onam. (1 September). That’s when all the Malayalees at my work get together and give the rest of the crew an Onam treat every year. There are 10 of us in a total team of 120. This year was no different. We started preparing for the celebrations the previous evening. I’m the caterer, the treasurer, purchasing and chief cheering officer for this operation.

A gang of us teamed up at Nirvana (our chill-out den at work) and prepared Pookalam (a floral spread which is one of the many ways in which Onam is celebrated). Flowers are hard to get in Muscat and I still remember a lot of us running around last year plucking flowers from any plant we could lay hands on. This year, it was different. We had a surplus of flowers, specially procured from Mumbai, India.

You can see some of us sorting out the flowers.

And here’s our Pookalam. A truly fascinating sight to behold!

The next day, Onam is on at UMS. Diyas (lamps) are lit on the floral spread. A traditional vilaku (lamp) is placed next to the spread. Onam songs are floating in the background. The full troop marches in. After all, they are going to be served a fabulous South Indian breakfast with idlis, vadas, sambar, chutney and vermicelli payasam (dessert). The celebrations begin when the lamp is lit by Sandeep, our head honcho. And then Rekha – who is our ‘Voice of Kerala’, goes on to give a small spiel on the legend behind Onam.

The Gang of Malayalees…

And then everybody tucks into the sumptuous breakfast. It seems that the vermicelli payasam is outstanding. Shamir, who is our Head of IT, is seen discreetly downing glasses of this delectable dessert while serving rest of the team. Mr. Nair, who is the overseer of this celebration, is always doing the rounds ensuring things are on smoothly.

Everyone is happy and the spirit of Onam is truly in the air.

Myself with Rakesh (Rocks / Rocky)…

It’s an amazing morning – a day when you feel you’re back home in Kerala and not in Muscat. Onam rocks!

A rail journey through the scenic Konkan Railway is the Indian rail-fan’s ultimate dream. The first time I travelled through Konkan Railway was on 14 December 2006 – from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) to Kerala on the 6345 Netravati Express. It was one of my most scenic rail trips ever. I clicked a few snaps then on the LTT-Panvel-Roha-Chiplun stretch, promising to do a full-fledged rail-photography session in the future.

A few days later, I travelled again from Kerala to Madgaon on the 168 Trivandrum-Dadar Holiday Special. I clicked a few snaps again, mostly on the Honnavar-Asnoti-Madgaon stretch. From Madgaon, I travelled to Mangalore on the 2619 Matsyagandha Express, mostly clicking snaps of Mangalore when the train got there in the early morning.

This year, I travelled from Ernakulam to Dadar on the Ernakulam-Dadar Holiday special that left Ernakulam after midnight (8 June 2007). This gave me a chance to photograph the stretch from Kannur-Kasaragod-Kankanadi-Udupi-Bhatkal-Kumta-Cancona-Madgaon during daytime. Click here to view a Google Map of my trip.

The journey was exciting and featured the following:

• Nature shots around North Kerala – spectacular curves with moody, cloudy atmosphere & rocking diesel action.
• My holiday special train turned out to be special as it stopped almost at every station on the route – that meant more photo-ops.
• An encounter with a RORO train between Bhatkal and Kumta. Click here for the video.
• An encounter with a vehicle transport NMG train at Bhatkal.
• Photo-ops with WDMs at Kankanadi.
• Amazing greenery & plethora of water bodies along the Konkan route – did a ‘tree portrait’ shoot along the way.
• Meeting a friendly railwayman at Cancona. Watch out for the video!
• Lip smacking sandwiches from Madgaon.
• An encounter with an incredibly long freight train after Madgaon. Watch out for the video!

I have uploaded images of the Ernakulam-Dadar (UP) trip on Flickr. Click here to view them. There are 162 snaps in all. I will upload snaps from my return trip from Mumbai to Kerala (DOWN) trip soon.

Slide gives me an awesome way to give you a sneak preview of my images in this happening ‘8mm film treatment’. If you like what you see in here, you can head to Flickr. As always, your comments are welcome!

Here’s my pick of the best 5 snaps.

And this is my all time fav…

And here’s a sneak look at the entire lot.

Here’s a video from an afternoon of rail-fanning at my hometown - Kollam, Kerala, India. The train is none other than the 2626 New Delhi-Trivandrum Kerala Express hauled by new WAP4 on the block - 22694. The 2626 is my fav train! This rail-fanning spot is just opposite the SN College, Kollam next to the Kollam Junction Railway Station. You can hear me and my best buddy pass inane comments while ogling at the train. The best thing about this video was the group of travellers singing ‘Laila 0 Laila’. Enjoy!

Minutes later, the Kochuveli-Bangalore Express, hauled by a WDM2 passed by. Couldn’t take more snaps than this as the train passed just a few inches from where were sitting… But it was such a scary but exhilarating feeling!