Ahmedabad Trip & Visit to Statue of Unity

Our Ahmedabad trip was an unplanned trip, which came as a fallout of high ticket price for our return travel from Jaisalmer to Chennai. I was looking for places to see near Jaisalmer through an overnight train journey and that's how I decided to visit Ahmedabad. We took the train from Jaisalmer to Ahmedabad on 28th Dec evening. 

We reached Ahmedabad on 29th Dec morning. I had booked our stay at The Fern Residency Ahmedabad (which is at a walkable distance from Sabarmathi Ashram). Since the hotel couldn't guarantee early check-in, I ended up booking for one more additional day - as I didn't want to take a chance while traveling with family. Booking this hotel is one of the best decisions that I made - the facility was maintained very well and they had a good buffet breakfast. Also, it was closer to Sabarmathi Ashram. We spent 3 days in Ahmedabad.

Day 1 - Local Site Seeing

We booked a 4 hours package in Ola and visited multiple places

within the city - Hutheesing Jain Temple, Sidi Sayed Mosque, Teen Darwaza, Bhadra Fort, Rani Sipri's Mosque and Kankaria Lake. Of all these places, Hutheesing Jain Temple and Kankaria Lake are the well-maintained places. There are a number of kids attractions like a joy train ride in Kankaria Lake and you can spend 3 - 4 hours easily in that place. It looks like the government has completely neglected all the monuments of the Muslims. They were in a dilapidated condition. 

We ended up extending the 4 hours package by another two hours to visit Adalaj Vav Stepwell, as it was far away from the city (nearly 25 Kms). This is definitely a "must-to-see" place - amazing and astonishing architecture. They do have a well-maintained lawn around this place. We returned back to the hotel by 1.45 pm after visiting this place. The whole trip costed Rs. 2000. 

We had our lunch, took some rest till 4.30 pm, got up and got ready. In the evening, we walked to Sabarmati Ashram. It is maintained really well - helped us to reflect on the struggle(s) that M. Gandhi has to go through during the years that led to Indian Independence. The place is also adjacent to the Sabarmati river, which is maintained well within the Ahmedabad city limits. We spent nearly 1.5 hours at the Ashram and returned back to the hotel. We finished our dinner early and started retiring early, as we had to wake up early the next day for the SOU trip.

Day 2 - Statue of Unity

I hired a rental cab from Ahmedabad Car Rentals for a one day trip to the Statue of Unity (SOU). They charged Rs.11 per Km + Rs.300 driver bata. The overall costs turned out to be around Rs.6000 for the entire trip. We started from Ahmedabad by 7 am sharp (the cab driver was also very punctual - in fact, he came 10 mins ahead of time). We reached SOU by 10.50 am - after finishing our breakfast on the way. 

SOU is a massive infrastructure spread over nearly 927 acres. We had to park the car almost near the Ekta Nagar railway station (they have multiple parking bays there!) and take an electric bus (free!) to reach the SOU entrance. SOU is maintained like Disney Land - phenomenal crowd management and cleanliness. You can even spend 2 days going to all the attractions in SOU - and all of them are targeted at kids. For example, you can even spend 3 - 4 hours strolling through the Sardar Patel Zoo. It's better to do online booking before visiting the place and it's even better if you can stay closer to SOU itself. The viewing gallery and laser show tickets were sold out - as it was the peak season. 

We visited the SOU monument, Dino Trail, Miyawaki Forest, Maze Garden (must see!) and Sardar Patel Zoo (Jungle Safari). Though we had booked for the Ekta Nursery we were not able to go there - as it was far away and it closes by 5.30 pm. The Jungle Safari isn't even worth it - there was a long waiting time and you can easily cover most places by walk. Moreover, animals like Lion, Tiger, Rhino etc., are kept very close to the entrance itself for the convenience of visitors. 

If you stay closer to SOU (Vadodara or Ekta Nagar), you can stay till late in the night to watch the laser show and need not worry about transport options. Since, we stayed in Ahmedabad, we left the place by 5.30 pm and reached the hotel back by 9.30 pm, skipping dinner (the return journey took longer than the onward journey due to traffic in Ahmedabad city). 

Day 3 - Ahmedabad Local Site Seeing

On Day 3, we visited the Swaminarayan Akshardam Temple by Ola cab. This place was nearly 25 Kms away from the place where we stayed. As we reached the place by 9.30 am (and the temple opens only at 10 am), we visited the Vishwamaitri Dham Jain Tirth Borij Jain Temple across the road. This is also a well maintained temple and they allow you to take pictures in some areas. 

We returned back to the Akshardam Temple. Askhardam is a well maintained temple (they do have a musical fountain show in the evening). Camera/Mobile/Bags etc., are not allowed within this facility.  They do have a well-maintained dining area with restroom facility in the premise. We spent nearly an hour there in the temple. We took a cab from Akshardam to visit the River Front Flower Park in Ahmedabad. I was worried whether we would be able to get a return cab - as the place was far away from the city. Thankfully, we were able to get a Uber cab quickly. River Front Flower Park is a well maintained place with good eateries. As they were preparing for a Flower Show, we couldn't get into the area of the park with flowers. We just strolled through the Atal Bridge and adjacent areas. We spent an hour there and took a cab back to the hotel. We reached hotel by around 12.30 pm. We took rest for a short while, packed our bags, checked out (by 2 pm) and left our bags at the cloak room in the hotel.

We then visited the Sardar Vallabhai Patel Museum. This is a decent and reasonable maintained museum - mostly pictures from the yesteryears and a few belongings of SV Patel. They do have a well-maintained lawn in the museum. After visiting the museum, we spent an hour at the lawn munching some snacks (as we had skipped our lunch). We returned back to our hotel by 5 pm, collected our bags and headed back to the Ahmedabad airport. The flight was delayed by 45 mins or so. We reached Chennai by midnight, at the dawn of the new year. 

A memorable trip to the Golden City, Jaisalmer!

During the year end holidays, we went on a mega trip to Rajasthan and Gujarat covering Jaisalmer and Ahmedabad Cities. Way back in Oct 2025, I was watching a song from a Tamil movie and asked a friend which place it was. He said, the place is Jaisalmer and it is in Rajasthan. Out of curiosity, I started Googling for Jaisalmer and was awestruck on seeing the places. Immediately, I booked the onward flight tickets through Indigo. When I started looking for return tickets, I realized that they were nearly 40% higher than the onward tickets. So, I started looking for other places to see near Jaisalmer through an overnight train journey. Ahmedabad appeared to be a good place to go to from Jaisalmer. Moreover, the tickets from Ahmedabad to Chennai was half as that of the onward tickets. So, I booked the return tickets immediately from Ahmedabad to Chennai and the train tickets from Jaisalmer to Ahmedabad. That's how our trip was finalized. 

We did have a couple of setbacks between Oct and Dec. Indigo had a flight cancellations fiasco, I had a health setback. So, we weren't sure until the last moment whether we would be going to Jaisalmer or not.   

I had booked our stay in Jaisalmer in a place called Hotel Neeraj, which is very near the Jaisalmer Fort. We reached Jaisalmer in the evening on 25th Dec. I learned that there are only 2 or 3 flights to Jaisalmer on a given day. We booked a prepaid taxi which charged Rs.800 to drop us in Hotel Neeraj. We had the dinner on first day at Shree Krishna Restaurant, which was right opposite to Hotel Neeraj. They served great vegetarian food. 

Day 1 (Places in 6 Km radius)

We got ready by 8.30 am and took an autorickshaw to see Bada Bagh, Gadisar Lake, Vyas Chhatri and Jaisalmer War Museum during the 1st half. If you saw Bada Bagh first, then you'll feel that Vyas Chhatri is nothing. In fact, you can even skip Vyas Chhatri, if you had seen Bada Bagh.  

Gadisar Lake is closer to the city center. You can even spend 3+ hours in Gadisar Lake. We took a boat ride, had street food and fresh juices at Gadisar Lake. Fresh orange juices appeared very cheap in Rajasthan. There is also a market surrounding Gadisar Lake - you can buy all sorts of things there. 

Later on, we went to Jaisalmer War Museum. We had our quick lunch at the cafe in the war museum. There was a long queue in the musuem to get tickets. We would've spent about an hour in the war museum. The museum is maintained very well. They do have a lot of other paid attractions and we didn't venture into them given the shortage of time. We returned back to hotel by around 2 pm or so. The autowallah charged Rs.2000 for this trip. 

We took rest for sometime in the hotel, then, got ready and went to Gadisar Lake by walk (roughly, 1.6 Km) in the evening. We went to the puppet show near the lake. The charges for the puppet show were a little higher - Rs.200 per adult. I thought there will not be lots of attendees. To my surprise, there were at least some 25 - 30 people attending the show in the evening and there were a number of kids too. It was a good entertainment for about 45 mins.  

After watching the puppet show, we went to Gadisar lake to watch the musical fountain show. However, by the time we reached Gadisar Lake, people started coming back from the show. It looks like the show starts sharp by 7 pm and we missed it.

We came back to the hotel, had fruits for dinner and wrapped up the day. 

Day 2 - First Half (Visit to the Fort)

Our day 2 started with a visit to the "living" Jaisalmer Fort (Yes! There are still a large number of people living inside the fort and there are eateries, shops, temples etc., inside the fort). It was about 2 Kms walk to get into the fort from Hotel Neeraj. Though we reached the fort by 8.30 am, there were already several tourists roaming around within the fort. The fort glittered in golden color because of sunlight. No wonder, why Jaisalmer is called the Golden City. 

We visited Baa Ri Haveli (the Haveli's are the mansions. There are several mansions within the fort). There is a entry fee to visit the mansions. You get to see the luxurious lifestyle of the riches in Jaisalmer by visiting these mansions. We had our breakfast in a restaurant within the fort.  

We also visited a couple of temples - Parsvanatha and Sambhavnath Jain temples. The statues / pillars etc., in these templates are very intricately carved. They are quite different from the temples that you would see in south India. 

Finally, we visited the Jaisalmer Fort Palace Musuem. The entry fee was Rs.200. We spent nearly 1.5 hours within the musuem. It was very crowded as people were competing with each other to take pictures. Yes! There are several photo-op places within the palace. It is maintained really well. 

We wrapped-up our visit to the Jaisalmer fort and returned back to the hotel by 2 pm or so. We finished our lunch at the Chanakyaa Restaurant in Hotel Neeraj. The food quality was great there. We took some rest till 3.30 pm. 

Day 2 - Second Half (Visit to the Desert)

We had booked the Desert Safari, Dinner and Dance through Rajputna Cabs. We were taken in a private car to the RR Anantam Resorts in Sam Sam Sand Dunes. The same car took us to the desert. We had to wait for nearly 45 mins in the desert camp to get the jeep. The desert was not as clean as what we had imagined (at least the areas that we visited). There were 100s of camels and cameleers - continuously requesting you to take a camel ride in the desert.

Finally, we took the desert jeep ride - it lasted for only 15 mins or so - however, it was quite exciting. We spent the next 2 hours in the desert clicking pictures - especially with camels and sunset background. Later on, we were brought back to the resort. The dance performance started at around 7.30 pm and lasted till 9 pm. They kept serving snacks and tea during the dance show. The dance performance was good.  We finished the dinner (The dinner quality was ok!) and started from RR Anantam using the same private car. We reached hotel by around 11 pm.  The desert experience turned out to be very memorable. 

Day 3 - Kuldhara Village

We had very little time on Day 3 as our train from Jaisalmer to Ahmedabad was at 3.30 pm. Moreover, we had to checkout from the hotel by 12 pm. We decided to just visit Kuldhara Village in the morning. We woke up a little late, had breakfast in Chanakyaa Restaurant, took an auto to visit Kuldhara Village. Kuldhara is a deserted village (there is an ancient folk tale why the villagers deserted the village overnight). There were several houses in a dilapidated condition in that village. There was also a temple in the middle of the village. We spent about 1.5 hours in that place - clicked some pictures and returned back to our hotel. The autowallah charged Rs.1000 for the trip. We checked out from the hotel at 12 pm and moved to the railway station.  We got food from Dhanraj Ranmal Bhatia Sweet shop opposite to the railway station. This place serves delicious food for takeaway. We had the food in the station and departed to Ahmedabad by train. 

And that's how our memorable trip to the Golden City of Jaisalmer ended. 

I'm now Dr. Saro Velrajan - What a journey!

I’m happy to share that I've completed my Doctor of Philosophy - PhD at Hindustan University! I finished a journey that I started 4 years and 11 months ago. My research is about "QoS-aware Service Migrations in Multi-Access Edge Computing". I'm thankful to Dr Thangakumar J (my research guide), Dr.V.Ceronmani Sharmila and Dr. Vallikannu Alagappan, who kept me motivated, pushed me to reach newer heights and lent a helping hand whenever I was stuck in the journey. Yesterday (29th Aug 2025), my viva voce was completed. I defended my thesis in front of an expert panel, qualifying to receive the Ph.D degree.

Why did I even sign up for Ph.D?

Let me take you back to the year 2020. I had some spare time during the Covid lockdown, I started writing a few blog posts about 5G. Then I asked myself "You are already known as a blogger. Why not just author a book?". I started authoring a book on 5G networks. It took me nearly 6 months to finish the book and I published the book via Notion Press and Kindle Publishing Platform in July 2020. Little did I knew at that time that the book would be later-on picked by leading universities such as Anna University, Bennett University and Christ University as a text book in their syllabus.

While I published the book, I felt that many authors were "Doctorates" and I didn't have the "Dr." initials. Around the same time, a friend of mine (Dr. Sundararaman Chintamani) completed his Ph.D at the age of 60. I thought age is no barrier to pursuing our academic goals and signed up for the Ph.D program at Hindustan University, Chennai.

The Journey

The initial journey was quite easy... as most tasks were done online. I completed the course work (studied and wrote assignments/exams for 4 subjects) and published my first survey paper in an IEEE conference in the first year.

The journey became difficult after that... finalizing a research topic, getting the research environment ready etc., took a lot of time. I got the idea for my research by attending several online viva voce sessions. One of the researchers had used Particle Swarm Optimization in their research work. Out of curiosity, I read more about PSO... and found that I could do research in Edge Computing using PSO. I learned Python and wrote nearly 2000 lines of Python code to create my simulation environment. That was quite a bit of learning. Once I had the simulation environment ready, then performing the tests, getting the results, benchmarking against other state-of-the-art algorithms became easy.

I published my research articles in journals and conferences, meeting the minimum eligibility requirement (2 journal papers + 2 conference publications) for Ph.D by April 2024. Unfortunately, my guide had to move out of Hindustan University. I was assigned a new guide... as per the "unwritten process", you have to publish a new paper under the guideship of the new guide to complete your Ph.D. It took me another 1 year to get another conference publication under the guideship of the new guide. I completed my synopsis/thesis submission by April 2025. I received the comments from the reviewers in August 2025 and finished my viva voce also in the same month... on the 29th August 2025.

I always tell others that for faster goal achievement, you need to have 3 people - a role model (who has already accomplished the goal), a mentor/guide (who guides you to achieve the goal) and a buddy (who is also pursuing the same journey). My role model for Ph.D was Dr. Sundararaman Chintamani. My mentor/guides were Dr. Thangakumar, Dr. Ceronmani Sharmila and Dr. Vallikannu from Hindustan University. My buddies were Musthafa Sheriff, Jinu Sainudeen and Michael Dinesh. All of these individuals had a direct impact on the successful completion of my Ph.D journey.

The Message

Quite often we sign up for something... but, while we make progress we find obstacles, hardships and challenges along the way. When my heart told "Saro! It's not your cup of tea... just give up and move on", my mind said "Saro! You should be a role model for others.. most importantly, your children. Just hold tight and finish your journey". Whenever I fell down, I jumped back up, dusting off the dirt, pushing myself hard.. almost limping to the finishing line.

Today, it feels as if I moved a mountain. When I reflect upon the journey, I feel that I've now developed more capacity to handle greater challenges. The new "Dr." initials that I've acquired would remind me of the Dream, Drive and Determination !

My sincere thanks to everyone who played their little part in helping me to complete this journey.

Speakers Hive Journey - Blog #2 - From Aim, Aim, Aim to Action

The year 2025 brought several changes into my life. I resumed my participation in Toastmasters meetings, after a gap of nearly 1 year.  I submitted my Ph.D Thesis in the month of April. That was a big relief to me. However, I had not taken any efforts towards starting the speakers forum. 

April got over, May got over, Jun got over... professional commitments became hectic... I thought I will do this once things calm down on the professional front. However, my professional calendar became even packed and I realized that I'm going to be busy till Sep 2025. I told myself that "Let me do this in Oct 2025". Whenever I spoke or met Kavitha Chidambaram, she always enquired "Sir! When are you going to start the forum?", "Sir! If you start it, you will find time to run it Sir... Don't hesitate ... Just start".

Around the same time, I was helping a friend of mine (from HCL days) Ram Swaminathan. He had enrolled in a coaching program and as part of that, he had to coach someone to achieve a goal. I went to him with a long term goal of mine (Suspense for now... not related to Speakers Hub!). He helped me make some progress... however, I hit a wall due to factors beyond my control/influence. He kept telling me... "Whatever you want to achieve in life, you'll have to start somewhere"... "Don't just keep thinking about it... and wishing for it... Just start ... the more actions you take.. the more progress you'll make... you'll move from the zone of unknown to the zone of clarity". While he was coaching me on another goal ... I decided to apply that persuasion... on "Speakers Hub". 

I kept hearing "Just Start... Just Start... " from both Ram and Kavitha.... It became hard for me to ignore the volume of those voices. 

I started floating the idea of Speakers Hub with my mentor from Toastmasters - Lalitha Giridhar. She came onboard and she said "Saro! Let's do it". While looking for a domain, I realized that Speakers Hub is already taken by someone and hence settled for "Speakers Hive" (which is more vibrant and energizing than Speakers Hub). I registered a domain, created a website and finally we launched Speakers Hive on the 11th of July. The arrival of Speakers Hive was communicated through a simple flyer in Facebook and LinkedIn. The response was overwhelming. 

The week that followed was one of the busiest weeks for me. The last time that I was "this" busy was when I was the Division Governor in Toastmasters for the whole of Tamilnadu  in 2011-12 period. After a long gap, I started dealing with a tsunami of volunteers and members who are interested to join the movement - back to back phone calls, Whatsapp getting bombarded with messages. In less than a week, we got 50+ members and 30+ volunteers. Kavitha Chidambaram, Lalitha Giridhar, Sudha Rajesh, Rajesh Natarajan, Rajeev Nambiar, Sidharth MP, Ra. Ma. Palaniappan and several other volunteers signed up to support the movement.

We started planning for our first online meeting on the 20th of July. I had created a Speech Manual with 10 basic speaking projects, a while ago using Gemini Gen AI Service. We decided to start the forum with that. We created role player templates/checklists, we identified a few role players... we trained them and did a dry run with them on 19th of July. I was in-fact traveling for work and was in a place near Mumbai on that day. I participated in the first meeting of Speakers Hive from a hotel room near Mumbai. We had 30+ participants attending our first meeting and it turned out to be a huge success. 

The journey has started... Speakers Hive has grown from a seed to a sapling, from just thoughts to actions. We kicked off Speakers Hive as a truly agile platform.. with the spirit of continuously learning, adapting and evolving. Most importantly, we will have to live up to the trust of the members and volunteers who have enrolled in the program. 

Speakers Hive Journey - Blog #1 - Dreamer or Doer?

A bunch of friends and I recently launched a new initiative called Speakers Hive, a non-profit forum for members to develop their communication and leadership skills. Our focus is to help students and professionals become better speakers and leaders. We intend to have chapters of Speakers Hive, set up in colleges, communities and corporates.

In a series of blog posts, I'm going to share my experiences and learnings from starting this new initiative. We are starting this from ground zero and from a clean slate. So, I am quite confident that we are going to learn a lot of leadership lessons in this journey. I thought it would be worthwhile to capture this journey in my blog - and use this opportunity to revive my blogging habit too. 

A group of friends and I from Toastmasters (Rajeev Nambiar, Sidharth M.P and I) decided to start a program for communications and leadership skills development in October 2020, to help young individuals to become confident speakers and leaders. Sidharth M.P had even taken a stab to come up with some 10 speech projects - to kick start the initiative. We approached an auditor and even submitted some documents for the trust registration with the name of "Speakers Hub". However, like a gushing 'Goli Soda' (a carbonated drink served in a bottle), the initial enthusiasm faded away in a few months. Partly, because I enrolled myself in a part-time Ph.D program and I couldn't allocate time for this initiative beyond work, family and studies. Subsequently, we told the auditor that we are not moving forward with this for now. The initiative went to shelf and got buried there for nearly 5 years. 

I got busy with my technical consulting career at Ginkos India and my Ph.D work. I couldn't think of anything beyond work, family and my Ph.D work for nearly 5 years. In fact, I even deprioritized my favorite Toastmasters program, due to the time needed to complete my Ph.D deliverables. The urge to revive Speakers Hub came in spurts a few times... however, the spirit vanished quickly like passing clouds. I was once invited by Kavitha Chidambaram (a friend of mine) in 2024 to attend one of her Toastmasters club meetings. At the end of the meeting, I told her... "Kavitha! We have a lot of young people in the community with a desperate need to develop their speaking skills. However, due to the high fees of the Toastmasters program, they are not able to get benefitted by the program. We should do something for this". She acknowledged "Yes Saro! We should do something". And, I got into my car and drove back home. The dream of starting a movement, continued to be a dream... and I didn't take any action after that.

Towards the beginning of 2025, when I inched closer to my Ph.D thesis submission... I told myself... this year we should do this for sure. I even wrote in my new year resolution that "Start a forum for communication and leadership skills development". However, I was yet hesitant to launch the forum. I had lots of questions going on in my mind "Will this work?", "Can I dedicate time for this?", "How are we going to develop the curriculum for this program?", "Will I get support from others..."... I kept postponing this initiative. 

In the mean time, Kavitha Chidambaram had gone ahead and launched several initiatives to help little children develop speaking skills in Tamil and English. With the help of volunteers, she was able to help several 100s of students to meet regularly and practise their speaking skills. 

Kavitha invited me for one such meeting happening in a mutual friend's house on a Sunday morning in Feb 2025. I was suprised to see nearly 2 dozen students with parents assembling in a house on a Sunday morning to practise their speakings skills... with lots of enthusiasm. While I went there as a Chief Guest, I felt ashamed that I was talking about a forum like this for years now.. but, have not taken any action. But, Kavitha Chidambaram is able to execute the plan in a few months - with lots of courage and confidence. While stepping out of the meeting, I told Kavitha "Kavitha ! For sure, I'm going to start something like this for adults this year... You can hold me accountable". 

While driving my car back home, I turned on my car radio to listen to some music. However, I could hear my inner voice louder than the radio and hence I couldn't ignore what it said. My inner voice told me "Saro! Actions speak louder than words. Enough of just dreaming, start doing. We have a lot of dreamers in this world. But, there are only a few doers. Do you want to be just a dreamer... or a doer?"

A weekend trip to Hampi monuments in Karnataka

If you are looking for a quick weekend getaway to an exciting and adventurous place, then Hampi in Karnataka is the place to go. We planned the entire trip just a few days ago and manoeuvred through the ancient city without knowing Hindi or Kannada.

Hampi is located 14 Kms from a city called Hosapet (pronounced as 'Hospet'). Hosapet has a proper railway station, bus stand with all the amenities you would expect in a city. We took a train from Chennai to reach Hospet past midnight. There were autos available in the Railway station, even at that time. We had booked our stay in Hotel Swagath (a budget hotel) near Hosapet Bus Terminus. The hotel was just 1.5 Kms away from the Hospet Railway Station. 

Places to see near Virupaksha Temple

Our sightseeing started on a Friday morning. We had booked a cab through Sri Sai Tours & Travels. We started our trip at 8.30 am. The first place to visit was Virupaksha Temple. It is an ancient temple with a beautiful pond and distinct architecture. Near to that is Hemakuta Hill Temple. You would be awestruck visiting this group of Hampi monuments. They are located on a hilly terrain with several small temples along the way, leading to the double-story pavilion. It is a great place to meditate... and the serenity would engulf your wandering thoughts. 

Outside the temple, you would see the 1 Km long Hampi Bazaar, which is in a dilapidated condition now. At the other end of the Hampi Bazaar, you would see a large Nandi Monolith Bull statue. 

Places to see near Kodanda Ram Temple

Then, our cab driver took us to the small hill where the Kodanda Ram Temple is present. This place is adjacent to Tungabadra River. You would see Rama, Lakshman and Sita carved out of a single rock in this temple. Near to this, you can visit the Yantrodharaka Hanuman Temple in a small hill. There is also a Coracle Ride service in the Tungabadra River, near the Kodanda Ram Temple. Tungabadra River looks very beautiful to watch from this place. 

Places to see near Shri Krishna Swamy Temple

Then, we visited Shri Krishna Swamy Temple, an ancient temple with beautiful carvings on the wall. Opposite the temple is a large "Hundi" which was used to collect donations that were sent to Tirupathi Lord Venkateshwara. There is also a beautiful Pushkarani (Pond) opposite  to this temple. 

Next, we drove to the place that housed Ugra Narasimha statue and Shree Badavilinga Gudi statues are present. We were told that the Ugra Narasimha statue was damaged post a war with Sultans and the Badavilinga statue will be surrounded by water all year around. Both these structures are massive and admirable. 

Places to see near Royal Enclosure 

The Royal Enclosure charges an entry fee to visit the Elephant Stable (a place that used to house 11 elephants) and the Lotus Mahal (a modern architecture that blends Persian and Indian styles). The same ticket can also be used in Vijaya Vitthala Temple. Nearby, there is Mahanavami Dibba (a massive elevated stone structure) and Pushkarani (an ancient pond). Also, there is the Queen's bath (an ancient swimming pool) in the same enclosure. 

Before breaking for lunch, we visited the Underground Shiva Temple. Unfortunately, the sanctum is surrounded by rain water - creating a pungent smell making the interiors unapproachable. We took a few pictures outside the temple and took a break for lunch.

Lunch at Tamarind-Tree Hampi

We had our lunch in a restaurant called Tamarind-Tree near the Vitthala Temple. They had several food options - but we settled for South Indian Thali. The food was served quickly. The quality of the food was good. However, as they were short-staffed the service in the restaurant was poor.

Places to see near Vijaya Vitthala Temple

Vijaya Vitthala Temple temple is a beautiful ancient temple that has three distinct attractions

- the temple complex, the stone chariot and the musical pillars. So far, I have visited a number of South Indian temples. But, I have never seen such beautifully carved pillars. When you tap on those pillars you can hear music - and that's why the pillars are called musical pillars. The Stone Chariot looks stunning near the entrance. 

There is also the King's Balance outside of the Vijaya Vitthala Temple complex. 

Our driver took us to a place near the Vijaya Vitthala Temple for a Coracle ride. charged  

They charged Rs.500 per person for a half-an-hour ride (and Rs.800 for one-hour ride). We took the half-an-hour per person package. The experience was amazing.

We wrapped up the first day and returned back to the hotel to unwind. 

Visit to Anjanadri Hills 

On Day 2, we decided to explore places through public transport. We took a bus to Kadebagilu from Hospet Bus Terminus. It took approximately 45 minutes to reach Kadebagilu. From there we took a share-auto (for roughly 4.5 Kms) to visit Anjanadri Hills.

Supposedly, it is the birthplace of Hanuman. The climb was steep and you need to cross 575 steps to reach the hill top. Anjanadri temple is very small and is definitely not worth climbing 575 steps. However, the view from the top is good. Unless you are spiritually inclined you would repent for wasting your time climbing to the hill top.

We climbed down the hill and reached the parking area. We boarded a government bus to Kadebagilu. We waited at the Kadebagilu cross junction for about 20 minutes and took a bus to Hosapet. We had our lunch at Hosapet, slept in the hotel for sometime and started our trip to Tungabadra Dam.

Visit to Tungabadra Dam

Tungabadra Dam (shortly called as T.B. Dam) is located roughly 5.5 Kms from Hosapet. We took an auto from Hosapet bus stand and the driver charged us Rs.150 for the trip. T.B Dam is a well maintained place. There are 3 attractions - Vaikunta View (topmost view of
the dam and Tungabadra river), the garden (with play area for children, acquarium and a
dysfunctional aviary) and the Dam. There is a private bus operator who takes you to the different places for a small fee. I would strongly recommend taking the bus as it is hard for you to cover all the places by walk. 

We returned back to the hotel in the evening, took some rest, had dinner and checked-out to reach the Hospet railway station. The two days that we spent exploring Hampi is still lingering in our mind. Your phone would be loaded with pictures by the time you wrap-up the trip. Hampi is so beautiful, calm and refreshing. 

COVID-19 Vaccination Experience in Chennai

Booking a vaccination slot in India through the CoWIN portal was similar to booking a H1B Visa appointment in US Consulate (not sure if that has changed now!) or similar to booking the ticket for a FDFS (First day, First show) for a Rajini movie. Government of India (GoI) has developed this wonderful portal CoWIN - which is used for advertising vaccine availability, booking a vaccination appointment and for tracking the status of vaccination, in India. Having used multiple online services offered by Governments, I should say CoWIN is truly world class. It is fast, simple to use and works all the times. 

When GoI opened up vaccination for the 18+ category, I was the first few people to "register" in the CoWIN portal. However, when you open up the flood gates all of a sudden, the gushing water may even blow up the flood gate and that's exactly what happened when they opened the services for 18+ category. CoWIN crashed. I guess the IT team worked hard to fix the problem soon. In about an hour or so, I tried a few times and finally managed to register. Then started the fun - though the vaccination program was opened up for 18+, none of the hospitals or government health centres opened up the services for 18+. I didn't bother going to the CoWIN portal for the next 2 weeks. 

On 20th May, Tamilnadu government launched the vaccination program for the 18+ category people. A friend of mine walked to a UPHC (Urban Primary Health Care Center) near to her house in Ashok Nagar and got herself vaccinated. She was persuading me to get vaccinated soon. I was hesitant to leave home and travel long distance to get vaccinated due to the lockdown in Tamilnadu. That's when I learned from a friend that there is a Telegram Group (U45 Chennai) for getting notifications regarding the available vaccination slots, as soon as it gets published in CoWIN portal. Immediately I joined the group and was amazed by the volume of vaccinations done per day by the private hospitals in the city. However, by the time I saw those notifications and logged into the CoWIN portal, the slots would be full. It happened continuously for a day and then I realised that I have to be super quick. So, I increased the notification alerts volume in my phone and was keenly looking for a slot near my home. To my luck, I found a slot near to my house in a private hospital - the new MGM Hospitals. 

On the day of the vaccination, I drove my car to MGM, thinking that I can find a parking space. To my surprise, there was a long queue of parked vehicles on either side of the road. Roughly, some 100+ cars would be parked along the road side in Nelson Manickam Road. I couldn't imagine seeing so many cars parked along the road side on a regular day - but, due to the lockdown the roads were almost empty and hence, it benefited the people who came in their cars. I parked my vehicle outside and walked into the hospital for the first time. I was awestruck by the crowd. It appeared as if I walked into a cinema theatre. There were so many people (some 200+) waiting in queue and multiple security personnel managing the crowd. After doing the initial screening for temperature and filling some forms, they are escorting 10 people at a time on a lift to another floor. The lift opened its door into a ballroom. It was a large hall and there were some 50+ people sitting in that hall. One by one, people were asked to make payment, verify their personal information and were vaccinated. We were asked to wait in a lounge for about 20 minutes. The lounge looked like an open air cafeteria that you would see in IT parks - with a pantry area for coffee and snacks. I waited there for a few minutes and started going downstairs. Despite the huge crowd, in about 60 minutes, the whole process was over. I was amazed by the way in which MGM had organised the camp and speeded up the whole process. They charged Rs.950 for a Covishield vaccination. But, I felt that they still may not make a huge profit - given the number of employees they've deployed and the infrastructure/ambience of the hospital. For people, who are looking for a hassle free COVID vaccination, MGM hospital in Nelson Manickam Road is good. If you can afford it, you should consider getting vaccinated in a private hospital, so that Government's free vaccine can go to the poor and needy. After coming back home, I logged into the CoWIN portal to download my vaccination certification. 

Napoleon Hill once said "Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting". The only weapon that we have in our fight against COVID-19 is the vaccination. I would strongly encourage everyone to take vaccination. We can fight COVID-19 only when most people get vaccinated. The second wave of COVID-19 snatched the lives of 3 of my dear friends. They were all healthy people - leading a happy life. But, COVID-19 came as a tsunami and shattered their families (and of course, friends). Their loss is irrecoverable. Dear friend... if you are reading this post, please get vaccinated asap. Even after vaccination, it is important that we follow the COVID-19 precautions such as social distancing, wearing masks and sanitising hands regularly.  Together, let us fight this evil virus and get it out of our community and country.