Celebrating Friendship on Friendship Day!!

For all my friends - The bonds of Friendship!!

The Burning Man - A salute to Creativity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man

Burning Man is a week-long event that inspires people from all over the world to come and celebrate creativity and self-expression. The Desert floor or “playa”, in Black Rock Desert in Nevada, is converted into a city of sorts with a theme.

The Burning Man

Burning Man is an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Sunday before and ends on the day of the American Labor Day holiday. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening. The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.

Satellite image of Black Rock City showing the familiar "C" or semicircle pattern.

Because of the variety of goals fostered by participatory attendees, known as "Burners", Burning Man does not have a single focus. Features of the event are subject to the participants and include community, artwork, absurdity, decommodification and revelry. Participation is encouraged.

The Burning Man event is governed by 10 principles, which are radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

The "Burners"

History: The annual event now known as Burning Man began as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned a 9-foot (2.7-meter) wooden man as well as a smaller wooden dog. Harvey has described his inspiration for burning these effigy figures as a spontaneous act of radical self-expression.

Black Rock City, LLC is the company that organizes and administrates the annual week-long Burning Man festival ending on Labor Day, on the dry lake of the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada. Headed by a board of 6 LLC members, the company conducts the year-round, behind-the-scenes work needed to build a temporary city of almost 50,000 participants. Event ticket sales provide a multi-million dollar budget for the organization. These revenues help the organization obtain required permits from the Bureau of Land Management, rent portable toilets and equipment, secure medical, fire, and law enforcement services, and cover other organizational expenses. The organization also holds a title to the nearby ranch used as a staging area. Although the organization has a for-profit form, its efforts are largely volunteer-driven, and its primary goal is to establish community.

The Bloody Duke's Nose!

Date: Sunday July 18 2010

The day began @ 4 AM in the early morn. Dawn saw us sitting on window side seats in a train to Khandala from Pune Station. Our co-passengers were other participants of the Explorer's Group's Duke Nose trek. After reaching the station at Khandala, we had some breakfast (Idli and Chutney, which tasted gr8 coz we were hungry :) )

We began The Trek @ 8:30 AM sharp. We touched Duke's Nose @ 1 PM, tired from a long uphill trek and hungry. We had lunch sitting on Duke's Nose, amongst the clouds. And then began the trecherous trek back down to the base, on the other side of Duke's Nose, in Lonavala. Slipping and sliding, trying to best maintain our balance, in a single file, on a dangerous path, we came down soaked to our skins in rain and covered in mud. I breathed a sigh of relief once we touched base. As if the uphill trek was any less dangerous.The view from the top was breathtaking, the trek, exhilerating. All in all, an awesome, tiring and dangerous trek.

But what we didn't anticipate was the 6-7 Km stretch from the base of the hill to the station. Never have I felt more tired... all senses seemed to have vanished except tiredness and pain!! I can safely call it the worst walk ever. But the amazing view of Lonovala was breathtaking, from the lakes to INS Shivaji up to the station. But believe me nothing gave me more pleasure than the first glimpse of the station. After a 2 hour long ride on the local train back to Pune, we reached the main station. Finally at home and after a hot bath I felt normal again.

On our way up the hill to Duke's Nose we passed a waterfall, we saw greenery and shrubbery of a variety I had never seen before, snails leaving silvery trails in their wake. But I was dissapointed to find no birds or animal life whatsoever. But I think thats what happens when man invades into nature's territory without any respect for its safety.

The view from several points up the hill was amazing. We could see all around us, with a birds eye view of Khandala and then Lonavala. Also a number of hills around the one we climbed.

{These pics are actual clicks taken by me during our trecherous trek up the Duke's Nose.}

Tragic!

BP Oil Spill - Catastrophe!!

The Gulf oil spill's disastrous effects on marine life : The explosion on the British Petroleum-leased drilling rig Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010, killed 11 workers and started a flood of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. As the slick grew over the weeks that followed and BP struggled to cap the well and deal with mounting outrage, attention shifted from the accident itself to the massive environmental impact of the gooey brown plumes gushing from the ocean floor a mile deep. That impact is likely to extend far beyond what is apparent on the surface or in the marshlands and estuaries of the Gulf Coast; the oil's effect on fragile underwater ecosystems could be truly catastrophic.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/04/oil-spill-forces-obama-to-postpone-australia-and-indonesia-trip.html 

http://www.examiner.com/x-22397-Providence-Business-Headlines-Examiner~y2010m6d6-BP-Oil-Spill-Cap-helps-slow-Gulf-oil-spill

http://news.discovery.com/animals/oil-spill-wildlife-clean-up-process.html

http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/06/05/oil-spill-what-it-will-kill.html 

With Carbon Emissions escalating, Steep rise in Populations, Water Tables running out of water, Sundarbans predicted to drown in a few years.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Home/Environment/Flora-Fauna/Sunderbans-will-drown-in-60-yrs-WWF/articleshow/5605021.cms

What legacy are we leaving behind for our future... We are on a path that ends in a deep deep ravine and there is no turning back... The most we can do is try and slow down on this sure shot path to death... But we dont even seem to be doing that!!