Heaven on Earth

From Santosh Hotel we trekked downwards through deep dense rain forests, piercing through canopy, wading through streams, sliding along valley, slipping on leaves, crossing fallen woods, jumping across boulders, bending along entangled bushes and reached ultimatum. Excitement galore as we reached culmination. That was pure "Heaven on Earth" in middle of dense rain forests of Kollur. The water was pristine, the weather was calm, the plunge was energetic and devoid of any human activity. Fortunately we did not encounter any snakes this time! It was tranquilizer to watch the waterfall thundering down to the deep pool with high energy. The attraction was none other than the beautiful 120 feet Arishinagundi Waterfalls. What a magnificent splendor to watch in middle of deep dense western ghats. Every sweat drop is worth to reach this place. The only sound we could hear was from waterfall and chirping birds. Western ghats are home to many such splendid treasures. Due to absence of civilization, there was not single waste nearby waterfall. We made it this time with help of wonderful guides. We had to climb down for 5kms through thick forests with profuse sweating. It was "Heaven on Earth" as we reached this magnificent sight. Our strain was eradicated after bathing in ice cold water.

Do hear grand orchestral music from Soundlift "Heaven on Earth" on this occassion and feel the passion of western ghats.

SoundLift - Heaven on Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwICEe6q5Zo

Linked to Skywatch Friday

A sojourn at Devarakolli waterfalls

02 Oct 2014,

Diverging paths from Bangalore were having tough times, thanks to the prolonged weekend. The holidays were keeping the city outskirts busy rather than the city itself. There was gigantic pile of motors lined up all along the highway leading to Mysore. The pathetic Shiraadi ghat road tempted us to drive along the longest Sampaje ghat road via Madikeri to Udupi. We dawned our day embracing normal traffic and later enjoying heavenly NICE road. 45mins later we were in Kengeri. The excitement peaked since we had crossed city at brisk pace but the zeal did not last long. The actual traffic snarls began showing up in few kms of drive. Our plan boomeranged with gazillion motors lined up all along the humps and town limits. The lousy traffic stagnated the smooth journey for more than 20mins as we entered town limits of Channapattana, Ramanagara, Mandya, Madhur. It was tough drive with the wheels barely scraping the asphalted surface, hands swaying around 1-2 gear, hardly any peddle on throttle, motor toiling along statically swollen & crumbled humps, radiating mid-day sun and melancholy of crazy honkers. The optimistic drive past Mandya was impeded by frequent pessimistic speed breakers. The cumulative delay was 3hrs. The journey which started at 7:30AM lasted for 5 hours and eventually reached Srirangapattana at 12:30PM. We were devastated by the abysmal traffic with full house restaurants adding fury to the situation and stomach.

A sigh of relief after Srirangapattana but still not hopeful of smooth journey due to traffic flow towards Madikeri. However, things were alright except for frequent humps till Bailukuppe. Phew man! That was tedious drive for no reason. The difficult drive was later overridden by the lush green hillocks. Yes, they are our lovely Western Ghats. Driving past Suntikoppa was heaven, piercing the dense canopy of rainforest (with Andy Blueman's rainforest music), floating the motor along hairpin bends. Moreover, the lack of humps, feeble traffic, well paved roads provided festive touch for eyes and drive. 2PM, we were in Madikeri and there is no need to explain the Joy. We were having roller-coaster drive descending the Sampaje Ghat with flat bitumen surface. As we descended 15kms, we stopped nearby glistening waterfall called Devarakolli waterfall. It was not surprise since we knew it from long time. The only new entry was its name which I came to know from shopkeepers nearby. As you know, Madikeri is famous for Abbey & Iruppu waterfalls. However, there are many other unknown waterfalls nearby namely, Devaragundi and Kalyala waterfalls (requires 1km trek). Devarakolli waterfall is not so prominent mainly due to fact tourists hardly descend down Sampaje ghat from Madikeri. In fact there is not much space for taking bath but nice hangout for few hours. The waterfall was at considerable glory since monsoon had just receded. It would be heavenly to watch during peak monsoon season though. At the end, if you are planning for Madikeri, just descend down Sampaje ghat to view beautiful shining waterfall. Don't worry, roads are fabulous and there is space for motor parking.

Here are pictures and a short video of visit. Hope you enjoy!

About the waterfall:

To give some heads-up, this is not official description rather my own narration. There was no info-board nearby and whatever mentioned here is based on my observations. Situated along Mani-Madikeri state highway right in middle of western ghats, the waterfall derives its name from the village Devarakolli. The waterfall seemed to have height of about 120feet. It has two stage zig-zag plunge followed by a short cascade. When I say zig-zag, the first stage and second stage are not visible at one sight but need to look them at different angles. Few shops situated nearby provides snacks and tea. The waterfall is easily accessible along the highway and parking place is available for vehicles.

SAMPAJE GHAT

From this place, we enjoyed smooth journey till Udupi (except for few stretches from Sampaje to Sulya). It was whopping 12 hr journey battered by the hectic traffic along Mysore highway. However, from Srirangapattana, we barely took 7:30hrs to reach Udupi despite 45 minutes of break. After the initial heck, the waterfall and western ghats added extra psychological smoothness to drive. The warmth the lovely rainforests deliver along with the beautiful waterfalls nestled in them can only be experienced and cannot be penned (rather keyed) down. End of day, we reached the culmination safely.

Sunset in your Eyes

Just returning from visit to Ramadevara betta last week during deepavali festival. The Sun had lit the sky with deepavali lamp. The sky after rains, is lit colorfully by the sinking sun with golden light. I feel, this phenomenon has some scientific fact behind it. The Sunset coupled with stray clouds paint the sky with dramatic patterns during golden hour, few minutes after rains. The patterns are vivid if the rays of Sun pierce through the shattered clouds! This time, even in Ramanagara, the scene was similar. There was significant rain for 10mins and later on the sunset with clouds created colorful medley in the sky. The rocky hills and green fields added more charm to the entire scene. The lone upright slender tree added to the rule of thirds placement to the composition :). Overall a perfect scene to capture HDR images. I had GND even this time which again restricted exposure bracketing to 5. The final HDR was composed sparing the +2EV picture for all of them since +1EV had enough shadow details. The images were blend in Luminance HDR and final editing with Darktable. Not to forget the "auto-align" option in Luminance HDR which is very important when you compose HDR hand-held. Lot of tweakings were carried out in darktable to match the "Sunset seen in my eyes" :).

The title is used to depict the "Sunset seen in my eyes" that day hoping for colorful days with vivid outlook. I hope you enjoy the pictorical Sunset in your eyes too!

This time the musical credit goes to the beautiful work by Poland musician TrancEye - Sunset In Your Eyes. Just lovely piece of music with orchestral melody and spectacular piano. Here are special aspects of music.

--> 2:20 orchestral melody followed by medley of piano at 2:45
--> the silent piano melody 3:23
--> beautiful breakdown outset at 3:51

The orchestral atmosphere from 2:21 to 3:15 is just mind blowing with gradual tempo build-up around 3:35 which sets up perfect breakdown pattern at 4:18 :)

TranceEye - Sunset in your eyes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv1fWYD24co

Panchamukhi Anjaneya cave temple, Raichur District

"Jai Hanuman Gyan Gun Saagar" outsets Hanuman Chaalisa.

During our visit to Mantralaya, we do not miss a chance to visit Panchamukhi Anjaneya temple situated in Karnataka-Andhra border. The place is said to have mythological importance and lord Anjaneya believed to be wish granter. The usual way is to travel via Auto-rickshaw along newly built dam across Tungabhadra river. This auto is a mass transit system and charge Rs.30/head (to & fro, a year back). The distance is around 25kms from Mantralaya. If there is sufficient water in Tungabhadra river, the best way to reach is to cross the river with coracle and later board Tata Sumo (again mass transit and tightly packed). The coracle ride is bit expensive but joyous. All along the journey, don't miss to enjoy the lush green meadows filled with fertile paddy fields. Also the landscape of river canal is soul soothing. Beware of chili plantations in between. You may sneeze persistently if you do not mask the nose. Also the blockages created by bulls and cows is one more enjoyment factor. Sometimes the driver inevitably has to dispel the adamant cattle.

THE TEMPLE

THE ENTRANCE

FOOTPRINT OF LORD ANJANEYA

The temple maintenance is quite average but has serene surroundings. Do not miss to savor the coconut burfee here! Also beware of nasty monkeys. They exhibit their power to the fullest. You may need to rush back since the transport owners force you to return ASAP! Better to have own transport system if you wish to spend more time here. At last, dont miss to enjoy puffed rice with little bit spice!

CORACLE RIDE ALONG TUNGA-BHADRA RIVER

AERIAL VEHICLE

THE TRANSPORTERS

Fable:

Sri Raghavendra Swamiji carried out penance for 12yrs in the cave around 16th century. Admired by the intense devotion, Panchamukhi Anjaneya, kolhapura mahalakshmi, Tirupati Venkateshwara and Sri vishnu in Varahaavataara appeared in front of him. As per guidelines, it is believed that Swamiji resided in Mantralaya. The main priest Anantachar believed to have installed idols of Rudra, Ganapathy and SheshaDevaru. The original fable falls back to Ramayana era which I am not aware of.

What to look out for:

1. Gudi of Hanuman's footprint in front of temple
2. Naturally formed aerial vehicle behind the temple
3. Nearby the aerial vehicle, one can spot naturally formed bed and pillow which Hanuman used during mythological days
4. Towards north, temple of village goddess Erakalamma

Temple timings:

Fore noon - 6AM to 1PM
After noon - 3PM to 8PM

Shri Chamundeshwari Palayam

Welcome to the energetic days of Navaratri. Goddess Durga is considered as symbol of energy and destroyer of evil. Just as when I was hearing beautiful composition of Sri Mysore Vasudevacharya, "Sri Chamundeshwari Palayam" in Bilahari Raaga, a thought sparkled into my mind to collate some of the Durga temples I have visited over the years. I guess many of you have visited the places but still sharing mine too. Hope you enjoy the virtual tour of the temples. Most of them are from nearby my hometown and few belong to Malnad areas. Ganesha and Durga are the prominently worshiped in coastal karnataka and hence one can find many of them. All of them have mythological importance. This post is dedicated to Goddess Durga and I pray the mother to bless people on earth with prosperity

Kamalashile Durgaparameshwari Temple

Situated beneath the beautiful evergreen western ghats, this temple draws crowd all through the year and heavily crowded during Navaratri days. During torrential monsoon season, the river Kubja swells towards the idol of deity soaking her with pristine water from western ghats. This day is considered auspicious and locals throng the temple to garner blessings during this occasion wading through swollen river. Do not miss to savor tasty lunch in the temple :). One can hire guide to visit Suparshwa cave in midst of dense western ghats where King Suparshwa believed to have carried out penance.

More info: http://www.kamalashile.org/temple/AboutUs.html

SUPARSHWA CAVE

INNER GLIMPSE OF CAVE

Kollur Mookambika Temple

The highest visited temple only next to Kukke Subramanya. One more temple situated right beneath the western ghats. This place is heavily crowded and it is strenuous to visit during Navaratri days. Devotees throng here prominently for Aksharabhyasa. Beautiful Souparnika river flows nearby temple and if you have energy, trek to Arishinagundi waterfalls 6kms from here through dense jungles!

Kateelu Durgaparameshwari

Situated 30kms from Mulki, this temple too attracts heavy crowd throughout the year. Similar to Kollur, it is strenuous to visit during Navaratri days. The temple lies exactly in mid of Nandini river. The sight is beautiful to watch during monsoon season surrounded by roaring river. Yakshagana offering is prominent in this temple where "Devi Mahatme" Yakshagana is performed as offering to Goddess Durga. There is long streak of queue for the offering. If you book now, it may take 2yrs from now for your turn. This is also due to the fact the offering is stalled for 6 months every year.

NANDINI RIVER

Sri Chamundeshwari Temple, Mysore

This well known for most of Indians and does not require any introduction. Here is a picture for you.

Kunjoor Durgaparameshwari temple near my village :)

Not prominent one however is surrounded by beautiful nature and paddy fields

These are few temples nearby Udupi. Not as well knows as above ones but worth mentioning due to mythological importance

MahishaMardhini Temple, Kadiyali

Durgaparameshwari Temple, Puttur

Durgaparameshwari Temple, Kunjar

This temple is located atop a small hillock. It is a fantastic vantage point even, where one can enjoy landscape 360degrees. This temple is recently renovated. One can also climb the steps to reach the temple (about 1000). The priest of temple draws water from well beneath the temple and brings it all the way upwards via steps for daily poojas!

Durgaparameshwari Temple, Mundkoor

 

Horanaadu Annaporneshwari Temple

Situated in middle of beautiful Western ghats, the temple also attracts huge crowd throughout year. Read a short post here.

Shringeri Shaarada Temple

This temple is also situated in middle of beautiful western ghats along with majestic sweet Tunga river flowing beside it. Read my past posts here

1) http://paadooru.blogspot.com/2013/10/drive-to-shringeri-and-sirimane.html
2) http://paadooru.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-brief-visit-to-teerthahalli.html

SWEET TUNGA RIVER

Bappanadu Durgaparameshwari Temple, Muki

The temple lies between beautiful paddy fields of Mulki also draws huge crowd during Navaratri days. The shambhavi river nearby adds more glory to temple's beauty. I do not have much information on this temple. Will gather when I find time.

There are many more which I will cover whenever I spare some time to visit. Hope you enjoyed the short post.

Also today I am happy to announce 50k views on my blog. I am indebted to the readers on achieving this milestone and will continue to write blogs whenever I find time. Never dreamt of blog reaching to such height. Once again I thank all the readers and also google for increasing page rank of my blog posts (98% traffic is from google search :) )

On this day, I share few beautiful musics based on Goddess Durga. There are many beautiful songs on Goddess however my favorite lies in three compositions of Sri Muthuswamy Deekshitar in Ananda-Bhairavi, Bhairavi and Dwijavanti

1) Kamalamba Samrakshatu (sung by students of Wesleyan University): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKMJx8g27Ig

2) Aaryam Abhayambham (Composed exclusively in Dvitiya Vibhakti. Read its review here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZ8CIruyiY

3) Akhilandeshwari Rakshamam (Hear from beautiful voice of Maharajapuram Santanam): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNFRr5R-dUA

4) Do hear Sri Chamundeshwari Palayam in Bilahari: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvZw70p4XPY

Timelapse - Distant storm formation at Markonahalli Dam

Here is one more old timelapse which I love very much. The nimbus clouds forming distant storm is mesmerizing sight to watch. Due to such patterns of nature, I love monsoon season whole heartedly. So how did I capture this? You need some experience of watching the sky especially during monsoon season. The whitish nimbus clouds illuminated by Sunlight turn dark as they shadow the sunlight. Such scenes are normal in coastal Karnataka and occur frequently during monsoon season. My curiosity towards monsoon makes me to watch at sky most of the times during monsoon season. Consequently this was one such scene which I could capture it as timelapse. The final video is edited in KDENLIVE for various parameters which I dont remember now. I aspire to capture more such timelapses during monsoon season. Hope you enjoy the timelapse.

The movements are achieved by usual cropping techniques. A little bit of boring math for cropping. The initial plane of frame was as shown in dotted line and final frame I wanted to achieve is shown as solid rectangle. Note that I wanted to maintain the the aspect ratio intact (which was 3:2). If not, the final frames would be clipped and video looks erroneous! The resolution 550D has is 5184x3456 pixels which is aspect ratio of 3:2. The motion time lapser counts (0,0) axis from top left and hence some offset corrections needs to be done to achieve movement. Consequently I fixed (x,y) co-ordinates to (0,1000) and later move the plane towards (1500, 0). To achieve this and fit the images to frame the offset correction goes as below

Frame length: (5184-1500),(3456-1000) = (3684,2456)
Movements from (0,1000) to (1500,0) with frame length of (3684, 2456).

Despite of this calculation, I had some clippings in last few images. May be algorithm used by Motion Time Lapser is different and hence I restricted final 'y' co-ordinates to (1500,200). The final math goes as

Initial (x,y)=(0,1000)
Final (x,y)=(1500,200)
Frame length=(3684,2456)

The final figure is as below. So what's the rule? There is no rule as such! It is upto your discretion to decide the co-ordinates to align with desired movements and speediness. Draw your desired movements on sheet of paper, execute simple math and set the co-ordinates in motion timelapser software which can be downloaded from here

Timelapse collection from my village and kaup beach

Here is brief video of timelapses composed in my village and Kaup beach over period of 8months. It has been lying in hard drive for no reason and I thought of compiling in bulk. Consequently here are set of footages of timelapse uploaded in batches to youtube. Except the night timelapse all of them are impromptu ones. Bangalore environment never provided me motivation to capture timelapses (not sure why) however as I reach my village, camera becomes very much active. I need to find a way to launch myself in city environment. Last but not least, comments and critiques are always welcome. If you are enthusiastic about timelapse or photography, please drop a comment so that I can contact you offline to create some footages alongside for fun.

The first one is set of compiled star trails composed during winter season. The first clip has turned out be great :). The technique I learned was the soft moon light (say 4th day from new moon) provides perfect studio light for exposing stars :D. Especially the opposite horizon gets exposed well under moon light! However after 5th day, the moon light is of no use and star visibility becomes pale. In that situation, if there are plenty of moving clouds, it creates one more dramatic timelapse with slight star exposure. Overall it turned out well. The huge compilation brings a sense of joy and keeps viewers also engaged and curious :).

Music: Innersync remix of Andy blueman's unifinished music Away From Sun. What can I say about this music, its perfect for extra terrestrial footages :D. Innersync has immense talent creating such music. Even though Andy did not finish this music, innersync foresaw its prologue and movements well and infused his talent to complete the music. Blueman was irked by the remix since he requested people not to remix unless he finishes. Nags apart, watch the video with beautiful remix from Innersync. Good news is Blueman has promised to finish the track

Full tunes:

1) Andy Blueman - Away from Sun (Preview): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn5yj7cdctc
2) Andy Blueman - Away from Sun (Innersync remix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pu7RJ2d5E4

The next one is dancing fog with peacock. I left the camera in the plantation and luckily peacock arrived at the time when nobody was around. Also the dancing fog has come good too :). At the end, the moving shadows also created beautiful effect :D. One critique I received from Rajesh was that capture should have been longer in length. Even I felt it later. Nevertheless, the final video turned out good with peacock and dancing fog.

Music: Royalty free music from YouTube repository

I have not grabbed much timelapses from Kaup beach. Usually I visit to enjoy the nature more than photography. Consequently only two short timelapses till date! The first was snapped during the day when stratocumulous clouds painted dramatic patterns on the sky during blue hour (Read related blog here). The other one was captured during monsoon season. Overall good to be in collection but nothing like terrific capture. Hope you enjoy the same.

Music: Royalty free music from YouTube repository

Here is near 3 minute footage of pending timelapses from my village. I was forced to dispose them due to lack of disk space. This time some video editing has been applied to accentuate the presence of moving clouds and sunrise with shadows. Every timelapse has different intervals, frames/second and shot in different modes (majority 'M' mode while few of them in 'Av' mode). Even though the clip is around 3 minutes, the rendering swallowed almost 90 minutes of time :(. This is mainly due to hardware glitch. It was worth the wait since the final video turned out to be quite fantastic ;). Hope you enjoy the same. The last part of timelapse was shot at night even though it appears as day! Shooting against studio light of moon creates such an effect at night except that stars are not exposed clearly.

Music: Our one and only Andy Blueman's orchestral mix of Afternova's work of 'Serenity'. One of the top class work of Andy Blueman since his inception into trance world. I used this music to depict serene village environment and it perfectly aligned with my video. This has been my all time favorite music and I listen to it every morning to calm myself down. Never makes you feel as how 9 minutes passed off. Gives a sense of peace and tranquility and with slow moving clouds over Kudremukh ghats. Those flute and violin blend is simply mesmerizing for ears. The actual fun starts at 3:30 when violin starts ascending towards high pitch, reaching peak at 3:40 and conjoins various instruments at 3:58 creating a serene ambiance B-). This pattern repeats further ahead but with different variations. Andy's brilliance in orchestral music is unquestionable and this music is no different! He was the first musician to introduce orchestral music in uplifting trance and since then has created many followers for him! The melody he generates is impeccable and gets you moving :). Most of the European musicians are fond of orchestral melodies and design it very well. I hope my video pays due honest to his musical excellence. There is also plan to capture more timelapses to fit entire music!

Full tunes:

1) Afternova - Serenity (Andy Blueman orchestral mix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvoW5Qo3FxM
2) Afternova - Serenity (Andy Blueman remix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1NOdB1uxDo

After gamut of inconsequential information, hope you enjoy the video too :)