The Life aheadPersonal Blog of Ratish Naroor

Life came to a stand still for me in the past three weeks and I really felt the difficulty when you are in a house arrest like that. I reached my native place Payyanur on 12th February for a 3 weeks stay, with lots of plans, but it was Chicken Pox written for me. I had never had this disease and now I know how difficult it is when the virus is in you. Due to some cross-reactions with a medicine that I took, I got my lips and mouth seriously wounded with ulcers. With not able to eat anything properly and bleeding all the time I really had the worst time in my life. I got lots of free time to watch some interesting movies that I downloaded when I was in Mumbai and I would like to recommend a list so that you can also watch if you get a chance to.

The Bucket List
Disturbia
Ratatouille
The kingdom

With lots of new things happening in my life I am moving ahead with full confidence and hoping for the best.

Its been some time my friends (Sreeram,Ravi,Mahesh ) and myself planning for Harishchandragad which is said to be a pilgrimage for the trekkers. We decided to start on Saturday morning.
We started at eight in the morning and reached kalyan station at ten. We had to catch a bus to a place called Kubi Phatta which is the starting point of the trek. We had to walk for half an hour to reach the bottom of the mountain and from there started the real climb through the 600ft vertical rock patch. There was a big team returning and everybody were giving us their explanation of how the trek is going to be. Some said its two hours walk but some said its gonna be easy for youngsters like us. It took us almost five hours to reach to the top. It was really a tough and challenging terrain to climb up. And it was a great feeling to reach the top after the tedious climb. There is a temple atop Harishchandragad which gives the trekkers a place to rest and stay the night. We had a dabba setup by Tukaram Bhoire who makes food for the trekkers and live there with his family.

The night was really cold and we managed to setup the sleeping place with whatever woolen cloths we had and it was not sufficient to fight the cold there. Woke up at six because we had to see two places in the near by areas. Konkan Kada being the main attraction at harishchandragad and we headed to that point which took us around half an hour to reach the place. It was a marvelous view from there. The whole mountain has a serpent structure due to the wind blowing there and the rocks breaking in an incremental manner. Its really a beautiful view from there.
The next destination was the shiv ling below the temple called kedareshwar. The 5 foot shiv ling was placed in the center of a cave which is filled with ice cold water all around the structure.

At about ten we started back to the city. We took the second path to reach the city which is not that difficult as compared to the path we took the previous day and is more scenic. We had to walk around five kms through that route and need to catch the bus at two at noon. We managed to get the bus and headed back to Kasara , from where the local trains head to Mumbai city. Reached Nerul back at 10 .
This trek for me can be said once in a lifetime experience and never expected that I could have reach at top with this ease. I am too lucky to the best group to trek with, who had the same enthusiasm that I had.
The snaps can be viewed here.

It was our first team outing from Fugro Intersite and the destination was Kelva Beach resort for one day and night stay. Kelva beach is around 3 hours drive from Navi Mumbai .We started at 9 30 am from Vashi and reached Kelva by one in the afternoon. The resort was quite nice and the best part was the ambience we had there. No noise from the outside world and the cool cottages. The beach was just a few steps from the resort and it was a low tide beach. We had to walk for fifteen minutes to reach the sea water. We played a lot of cricket and a little cycling on the beach. The two kids smart Anouska and too smart little Yash made the trip more enjoyable and fun filled. I really had a nice time being far from the crowded city life.
The snaps of the trip can be viewed here .

Last Friday my manager Rajesh Thorat suggested my team members and myself to accompany him for a visit to his farm house on the Pune-Nasik highway. We started the Saturday evening and reached the place at night. Really a quiet and huge farm house that everybody will dream of for keeping it as a second house. The electricity was not present when we reached the place but with the help of candle light he managed to show us the huge construction that he managed to build in the span of four years. The temperature at night was really cold, I think almost 13 degrees Celsius.
Getting up in the morning was really hard but I had to get up to get some sunrise pictures so had to get up .That time was the perfect to get the overall view of the farm house. My manager took us for a walk around the farm house to explain us what all he is growing there. I got a good chance to click some nice snaps in and around the farm house. We prepared some break fast together which was also a great fun.
We started off with a plan to visit some temples near by which were part of the Ashtavinayak group of temples. As we were returning after the temple visits the disaster stroked. The road was on the way to a sugar factory and the roads are fully packed with trucks fully loaded with sugar canes. As we were stuck behind a truck another truck from our back lost its breaks and directly dashed at the rear side of the vehicle. We were stuck in between the two trucks and as all were lucky enough there was no causalities. The car was badly damaged and we never expected our nice weekend will halt like this .The day went off with police station work and taking the vehicle back to the farm house. On Monday morning we started of to Mumbai early morning .
The snaps can be viewed here .

I was planning to take Richard, who is from Holland SDC, for a visit to Mumbai city but had to cancel it because of a political rally in the city.I had to change it to Lonavala, the place I have visited two times.This time it had a difference.We trekked to the korigad Fort near the Ambey Valley city.Really a marvelous fort built with tremondous effort.We made it to the top easily and it was worth the climb.Richard also had a nice time to climb up to the top to a fort so high for the first time.My weekend passed away with a great Trek.
The snaps can be viewed here.

An unexpected visitor was there in my apartment on last Sunday .All my other friends staying in the crew flat woke me up and said there is a cute little friend who has come to meet me .I just took my camera and thought of taking some snaps but that guy was smart enough to fly directly on top of my head . I think he just escaped from his owner’s place that’s why he was not that much afraid of humans .Got some snaps and have shared it here .

Its been sometime I went for a trek .My friend Sriram Sreenivasan and myself decided to trek towards the Karnala Fort .We started at 9 am from Nerul station towards Panvel .From panvel , its about 11 kms to reach the entrance of Karnala Bird Sanctuary .The journey was awesome because first time I was traveling in “TUM TUM”.Its a bit bigger auto rickshaw but I was enjoying the drive .After reaching there we took the tickets for the entry and started the trek .The starting itself was a bit tedious for me .Its been sometime that I have gone for a steep walking like we had today .But I did it at last . We took lots of breaks in between and made a slow move to the top .After some steep and bad route we reached to a clear plane land on top where the grass have grown a bit because of the good rains . The fort was really huge and I was wondering it would have been difficult for Shivaji the great for constructing a fort on top like this .Got a chance to take some wonderful snaps and that can be viewed here .

It was almost 2 months I was missing Kerala. Onam and my cousin Sis Manju’s marriage were both coming in the next week .I decided to take one week leave to visit Kerala . I headed to Kochi as my parents decided to drive to Cannanore in our newly bought Honda City .I spent Onam with my grandmother at my dad’s place .I was much happy that my cousin brother Vinith was also there to celebrate Onam from Chennai .We traveled a bit around our place to get some ‘God’s own country’ shots in my camera and I hope I got some good ones.
Marriage was also a nice point were I was able to meet my relatives in one place. Altogether got a nice break from my work.

Shared some of the snaps here .

I got a pleasant day for a Mumbai city visit .We decided to have a round in his new car around the city covering some prominent and famous hang outs in Mumbai. We visited gateway of India , Marine Drive and Haji Ali .Captured some good snaps and can be viewed here .

I was a bit unhappy of wasting my week ends in the apartment in Mumbai, mainly due to two reasons: it will be raining outside or I am finding it difficult to commute in Mumbai without any guidance .This time I got good company to go around .My colleagues Addy Tas from Holland SDC and Dave from England SDC. We decided to visit the hill station ‘Lonavala’ . We were happy that we got an expert driver who has visited this place many a times .The drive was really cool as we took the Mumbai-Pune express highway. I have only heard of the place but it’s really well maintained highway and a nice view on the whole highway stretch. Got some good snaps of the tunnels and the konkan beauty .The pics can be viewed here .