Cast your vote for us to The Great Driving Challenge !!

We are Planning to participate into the Great Driving Challenge even organized by Mitsubishi. The trick is that I need to gather votes and testimonials in order to get my chances on the higher side. Unfortunately I know none other than you my blog readers to support me.

Hence I'm requesting all the blog readers to find your time to cast your vote for me and my wife for the challenge.

Click on the link below to support your friends for the driveaway.

http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/Sivakumar/

Once you see the page, record your vote and testimonial. Let me see if I'm progressing on the vote rank. Thanks for voting!

If at all we qualify for the Mitsubishi Cedia Great Driving Challenge, we will opt to drive the following route to cover the challenged 3000 kms stretch. See the Google Map for reference here:

View Larger Map
WoW looking at the route I have planned shows me the joy drive that we are going to have. I'm thinking of the Chennai-Bangalore-Mysore highway drive, Bangalore Traffic Drive which is going to put sure stress on my arms, Mysore-Wayanad-Mangalore Forestry safari, Mangalore-GOA Coastal and Congan cruise, Most adventures curves of Goa-Pune road while we set our self into the Spicy food fiesta travel in the lands of Andra Pradesh.

Overall we are ahead of whole of South India states tour and our path covers Tamilnadu (Chennai), Karnataka (Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore),Kerala (Wayanad) and Andhra Pradesh (Hydrabad). I can't really resist to show my excitement, this is really going to be break to our work life.

Organic farming ! What exactly is it ?

My recent venture into farming provided me a great learning experience about the food that we consume every day. It also gave me an insight of what comes free with the food items from the farms that produce fruits and vegetables that we consume. Oh yeah they are good for health only if they didn't come from chemical processed cultivation. What does it mean ? I was saying if the cultivation is not done in organic method, sure it is going to create trouble by giving lots of unwanted chemicals along with the food items.

So, I decided to venture the organic way of producing the fruits in my farm, the first thing is the mangos. Now the organic farm outputs are really tasty and they are healthy mangos. I spent almost all weekends in the farm harvesting the organic mangos as the summer turned out to be Mango season at my farm. If I remember there was no single instance of fertilizers usage in this farm for the past one and half year.
I strictly say no for the ripening process with Calcium Carbide, hence the natural way of ripening method is been used. I use the paddy grass with the mangos in a dark air tight room for about 3-4 days for the tasty and healthy output.
Just to make the entire process neat and to produce the mangos in a hygenic way, the mangos were handpicked personally and loaded them on my Jeep to transport to Chennai.
In fact it was too tiring work as much as most body muscles needs to work climbing on the mango trees and picking them down. I took couple of breaks in while harvesting the mangos from tree, again the Jeep worked me as my shelter.
The jeep was loaded with dry paddy grass and mango bags to transport back to Chennai. Earlier week I used my Jeep with trailer as the quantity was more.
Last week, The farm produced around 800kilograms of fully organic grown and rippend mangos and this week around 400kilograms. Not that the quantity is reduced, but the farm contains couple of mango varieties and they will be harvested in a time difference.

Hurray! I'm supplying the organic mangos to anyone who really like natural comodities at the same price of dangerous fruits available on the market. Now I'm really proud to be a farmer.

BEWARE of Calcium Carbide ripened fruits (Just for the information sake):

the Calcium Carbide ripening .. which is too dangerous and toxic. If anyone who reads this thread please understand not a single mango that are sold in Chennai's open market is organic and the ripening process is mainly using Calcium Carbide stones. Calcium Carbide when mixed with water produces acetylene which is highly combustible substance and when mixed with oxygen can be used for welding and cutting metals.

Rather said that besides acetylene, ethylene which is also a plant hormone regulator is also produced and this characteristic helps in ripening of fruits. As the science says, Calcium Carbide is carsogenic in nature and it is not in purified form and contains traces of arsenic which too is toxic.

Passport process - UGLY

Last week was a successful week for me in the process of my passport renewal. I have been running behind the idiots working in regional passport office at chennai for more than 3 months now.

Many would have read the news about the corruption scandals about this office in the latest past weeks. I did witness lots of malfunction as the whole office is pushing people to the greatest trouble by not giving proper information and making people to come back again and again so the crowd will go for Passport Agents (brokers?) help.

I was visiting atleast 8 times to make my success story, every other time either for some issue which are not related to us or their unannounced rules. For an example if you have to get tatkal passport (fresh/renewal) the govt. website claims one can pay the fee by Demand Draft or by Cash. If you opt for cash and stand on the queue on appointment day, after 2-3 hours of standing on the quoue you will be asked to reappear in the queue from begining just because you dont have a DD. Though their website still claims they accept cash... my very first visit to the passport office on 12th January 2009 is for the same reason rejected. Inspite of my fights with the entire crew (even after the Regional Passport Officer who is not behind the bars) with written enquiry I was rejected on the counter.The entire office is made of anti public policies and What turned out be the final and interesting part of this passport renwal process is introduction of lots of new friends.
One among was Rajvee of Sun News.. oh yeah.. I recall my family calling him with a nick name "spring neck". I didn't expect me to be on his mobile contacts... it was great to be meeting with this chap.

UPDATE: Finally I got my passport renewed last weekend.

Adventure Zone

An healthy economy provides tons of opportunity for anyone who is venturing into a new business. As in the developing country, I have seen many new business inventions everywhere in the country.Likewise, I found an interesting business to feed the adventure hungry Indian youngsters run by an ex-army personality. The business house is called Adventure Zone. We from Jeep Thrills club visited this place to celebrate our 4th Anniversary and found it excellent in terms of amenity that they provide.
This facility is been run with an idea of providing a artificial platform for the corporates for their Team Building activities. Hence lots of corporates looking at Adventure Zone as an Option.The picture below shows Adventure zone rappeling and rock climbing on our last visit

Hindu or Non-Hindu

I have been reading about the Dravidian culture for a long time now. As I’m part of the single largest and native Indian society, I started digging the roots of Hindu religion in India.

Indus (Sindu), Hindu, Hindustan, India and Indo are all words referring a river, religion and region or the country in Asia. While all of the above sounds similar, I doubt the nativity of these words as authentic Indian words. The reason being the ones

1. Hinduism itself a religion brought to India by Aryans (People who travelled from Middle Asia and Europe). I assume this is correct because I found through the old testimonial of Judeo-Christianity about Moses who brought down ten commandments from God in the Mount Sinai and when he got down from Mount Sinai with the commandments, he found his followers were worshiping idols looked like animals, birds and so on. With the same context reading the 2nd commandment which was brought in by Moses says “"Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..." This prohibits the construction or fashioning of "idols" in the likeness of created things (beasts, fish, birds, people) and worshipping them.” Taking this into consideration, I believe the religion followed by the people on the foot hills of Mount Sinai is none other than Hinduism. As the same people moved towards Indus valley during the later term formed the same religion with the name attached to the valley they stayed. The Ten Commandments itself made for people the religion that followed worshiping animals, birds and people etc which is common in Hinduism.
2. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are the oldest modern civilization found in ancient India when Pakistan was part of India. This community was called Aryan which was again peoples who inhabited parts of what are now Germany, Iran and Afghanistan. This sets a clear path for my first point that the Hinduism itself a religion brought into India from middle Asia and Europe. As the Aryan community in India dominates the northern region and got lots of similarities in their body color and physiques.
3. Dravidian is the people who were the original people of the region now called India. Once India was a part of Gondwanaland (which is a combined land mass of Africa, Antarctica, India, Austarlia, South America).According to continental drift theory India broke away from Africa(part of gondwanaland) in permian period of geological time scale and drifted northwards and joined asia(part of Laurasia)....Himalayas are formed on the boundary between India and the Laurasia.(***Plate Tectonics theory also supports this hypothesis), Hence the Dravidian people now who are living in the south of India called Tamilians, Malayales, Kannadika and Telugu people. These people share the same color as Africans; India got almost similar animals like Lions, Tigers, Peacock, and Elephants and so on. Hence this proves that Dravidian people are the original Indians

With the above three theories, looking at Hinduism and its domination in India is only seems like alien religion. If then, what was the religion in India before Aryan’s invasion?

Undoubtedly, it was the nature and king worship. This is proven as even today the south sides of India have many non-Hindu related Gods are worshiped. As per Hinduism the worship of God has been extended by a community of people called Brahmins. Where in the non Hinduism based God worshiping in South India requires no Brahmin community for their God worship. Such Gods are called

• Karuppu Sami (also known as Sangili karuppan ) - one of the regional Tamil male deities
• Munishswaran
• Ayyanar
• Kaathavarayan Mythological God figure also known as a Warrior Deity
• Ellai amman
• Maari
• Kaateri amman
• Sudalai Madan or Madan, is a regional non-Vedic Tamil male deity who is popular amongst the least Sanskritized social groups of South India, particularly Tamil Nadu. This deity is very ancient. He seems to have originated in some ancestral guardian spirit of the villages or communities in Tamil Nadu, in a similar manner as Ayyanar.
• Madurai Veeran (lit.:Warrior of Madurai) is a regional Tamil folk male deity popular in some areas of Tamil Nadu, India. His name suggests an association with the city of Madurai and a warrior past. The deity is also popular amongst certain segments of the Tamil diaspora in Réunion and the French overseas territories in the Caribbean Sea. He is known as the son of 'Amman' amongst the South African Tamils.

This states the true side of ancient Indian religion as non idol worships and followed the warriors of various time periods.

I recalled all my collection of data after visiting a Ayyanar temple last weekend ;-)

Kids day out - Pre-School annual day

It was my younger son's pre-school annual day a weekend before the last week. The kid was always saying something about the annual day celebration with his language.

I got a call from the pre-school principal saying that my ward is participating in an annual day event, I was surprised and excited to know what can be a possible event a two and half year old boy can participate ? The incharge of the school also told me to drop him a day before to the annual day for reharsals for the event. hmmm that was an addition cup of tea for my excitement.

The day has come I went to the school with my son four hours before the event and even that time the school people didn't tell me what is the event my son was participating. I went back to home and got my family along to attend the annual day celebrations.

The very first program in the event was the pre-school kids dance, I should say it was ramp walk. The small little cuties lined up one by one with green colored dress and big fruits softtoys attached to the dress. I first noticed a kid with tomato looked like my ward, started clicking the pic and found I was wrong ;-)I saw another kid with banana toy .. oh yeah it is my son Adhava for sure... I followed him to click few pics.It was really happy day for all of us, and my elder son had a great day too as the school was his ex-school and he did know all of the people around.
Just a quick video from my still camera here:

Cultural Dressing and Nature Shopping

It's a new found passion for me to spend time in the form and shopping at the nature's green mall. Oh yeah, last weekend also turned out to be a Cultural Weekend so I wore Traditional Tamilian Wear, the Silk Veistee.

Yet another family get away is what I call the last week’s trip to my home town Tiruvannamalai. Our initial plan is to attend a religious function at the sleepy small town in the north of Tamilnadu and return back to Chennai.

I had to wear the traditional Silk Veistee and Silky with cotton made shirt, I really like and love the dress. Since the function had happen inside the temple, I can’t wear foot wears. In Hinduism foot wears are not allowed inside the temple and one need to walk bare foot in the temple.

As a part of honoring the special people in the temple, they put the string of flowers in to people’s neck like large sized necklace. This time my kids were the VVIPs in the temple, which is actually our family temple.
The plan we made has a flaw as I really didn’t consider adding up visit to my farm, eventually that had happen as in the farm we were harvesting sugar cane. Oh yeah, the name suggest that it is a crop used for producing Sugar, Jaggery, Molasses, ethanol and also for Rum production. We have given the sugar cane to Jaggery makers. As this is my second harvest on the cold winter surrounded past, the yield was not as expected.
Trip to the farm, made me happy as usual, I got to see the budding Jack fruits in one of the tree. Jack fruit is the largest tree grown fruit in the world. Both Jack Fruit and Sugar canes are native Indian plants. They both are cultivated in Warm Tropical lands. I also witnessed the mango in this year going to give very good output, the mango flowers are occupying entire tree and it looked great.
Tamarind, Mangos, String beans, Tender Coconut and few Sugar canes for raw consumption have been plugged out directly from the respective crops. Hence the visit to the farm filled my shopping bag turning the trip as a Nature Shopping Trip.
Opps, the start from the farm showed me the tires of the car got punctured. I got it replaced with the spare wheel and had enough tender coconut to stay away from dehydration issue.