No! This is not a rant! Its just an update on this blog about my life in the past 4 months after my marriage. As expected, life after marriage has been busy marked by weekends spent either traveling to some place or playing host to parents / friends at our newly set up home. Gudi Padwa at Home Travel with my Mom-Dad to Sardar Sarovar Dam In the backdrop - Sardar Sarovar Dam Dad, Divya, Mom In the Valley near Sardar Sarovar My Brother (Abhishek), cousin (Manasi), wife(Divya) and me(Nikhil)! My In-Laws: Mom, Dad, Wife and Sis-in-law (Neha, sitting) Visit to Hanging Gardens Mumbai Visit to Nariman Point Me and Bro - Riding uphill in the trolley at Champaran / Pawagarh near Vadodara Climbing up the last few steps My Brother: While Climbing Down For more photos goto: http://picasaweb.google.com/kulkarni.nikhil/56Home?authkey=Gv1sRgCKTai57x8PT73gE#

Monsoon view from my window ... East West Street Art | Location: Parel-Elphinston Flyover on the Ambedkar Marg A rainy day drive to office ...

Its been 8 months since I got the delivery of my Car (on August 7th, 2008); I recently clocked the 10001st kilometer on the road in my car.  A couple of days before that, I clocked 9337 kilometers - so what's so special with that. Just that my registration number also happens to be 9337 and I was fortunate to notice the meter when it turned to 9337.      My experience with driving my own car has been great till now - the machine - Maruti WagonR Duo runs pretty cool. Except for a little lack of pick up at high speeds, the LGP engine works just like Petrol hile saving money and of course environment as well.  I have done 2 Pune trips, 1 Lonavla drive, 1 trip to Daman and numerous trips to the Palm beach road and South Mumbai - trust me having your own car to drive around gives you a feeling of freedom - Iyamlouvingyit ...  Here are some snaps of my Lonavla trip with friends (way back in September). [Click the images below to get enlarged Flickr versions] The Mumbai-Pune Expressway...

I had visited Chroma in Pheonix Mills Lower Parel a couple of days back - the Nano was on display there. I clicked a few snaps with the little celebrity :-)  Here are some of them. [Just in case the snaps interest you  - today is the last date to book the Nano]

Ever since my batchmates M & A (who are married to each other) moved near my place - I often have the Sunday brunch at their place. Today too Somnath and I went for brunch. By chance I carried my camera and took some snaps ... here are results of the random shoot! Somnath and Milind Me .. sitting under the cuckoo clock The Tiger walking along Streets of Hiranandani (Somnath's nickname is Tiger) Me on the Street ... a new building in backdrop At Naturals ice cream parlour - one of our favourite hangouts

Went to a outing with a few colleagues (and ex-colleagues) to a place near Khopoli . Our basecamp was at ' Tudor Retreat ' - a farm located by a Lake off Mumbai-Pune Highway. Tudor Retreat is surrounded on three sides by lush green forests and hills. The farm is a spread on 10 acres of land full with greenery, trees and plantations. We went to a waterfall about 30 minutes walk from the resort. Since I had wet my shoes playing football earlier - I trekked barefoot to the waterfalls. It proved out to be a session of rigorous acupressure - to be frank - 'twas was quite a torture; I am still nursing my feet. The waterfall was wonderful! Water was gushing from the cliff (about 50 feet high) with immense force - none of us could manage to stand exactly below the main waterfall. There was a smaller offshoot waterfall, which also was quite forceful - but just enough for us to take some acupressure on our head and back as well. It was raining, so unfortunately, none of us could ca...

Well ... here is another view from my window - this one is towards the right ... Click on the image to enlarge .. if it is not yet explicit enough - I have been spending quite some time in front of my window lately :-)

Click Image to Enlarge Description of the View Leftmost white building - ' The Renaissance ', Smaller Building between the two white buildings : ' The Residence ' Under Construction : New wing of 'The Renaissance' Yellow Buildings among the greenery : NITIE Hostel and Academic building White 'stepped' building on the right: New Hostel, IIT Bombay Water Body: Powai Lake Greenery near the horizon: Parts of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivali

Source: http://xkcd.com/c256.html A lot of new concepts are floating on the web recently .... one of them is Second Life an alternate world - online .... "a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents." One can buy islands, start new businesses, buy and sell products (even make money in the real world through it). I just got news that people are exploring possibilities of hacking in second life! Just combine the concept of SecondLife with the map above ... the map of online communities ... and you have the next step towards The Matrix !

« Goto Swiss Tours Part I Part II Summer is the best time to travel in Europe; primarily because the daylight lasts for 14-16 hours and one can spend time from as early as 5 AM till as late as 9 PM sight seeing. After returning from Jungfrau, we too hence had a lot of time to roam around Interlaken . Interlaken is a small town.- from Interlaken East to Interlaken West it would be about half an hour walk (thought there are two railway stations on the two ends). Nevertheless it is immensely beautiful, so much so that I hardly have any words to describe it … the pics say it all. Horsewoman riding horse wagon Beautiful parks Flower decorated squares As it is we were taken by the beauty of the town when we landed at an open marketplace where a festival of sorts was on with ubiquitous music and food stalls. Huge grass covered ground meant for paratroopers to land ‘ Swarovski ’ Teddy bear Even normal houses on the street have huge decorations in their courtyards A canal which almost marks t...