Thol Sanctuary is located 40 kms northwest of Ahmedabad, in Mehsana District. Thol lake, created in 1912, covers 7 sq. kms of mostly open water. There are small marshes at the edges and some scrub forest on the sides of the high embankments.

Birds: Thol is well known for wintering Great White Pelicans, Flamingos, a variety of waterfowl including Mallards and good numbers of Greylag Geese, Sarus Cranes, the odd Spotted Flycatcher and waders which include Eurasian Curlews. Highly recommended if you are traveling through the area.

Tips to enjoy the trip better:
1. Go armed with a good SLR
2. Leave before Sun rise. Watching it is worth getting up at an earthly hour. Besides it's far more pleasant
3. A pair of Binoculars
4. Carry Food & water for noisy tummies. If you feel hungry you will have to go all the way out.
5. Wear three fourths/ shorts - Marshy land and tiny islands can be reached only you need to wade through water
6. Natures call literally! We couldn't find a bathroom. The security guard at the gate said that there was one inside but insisted we steer clear of it as theres nobody to clean it
7. Go through a book on birds if your as unapprised about these feathered friends as we all were. The only ones we could recognise were crows.



The Sun Temple, Modhera (Gujarat) was built in 1026 AD by King Bhimdev of the Solanki dynasty and is dedicated to Lord Surya, the Sun God of Hinduism. It is akin to the Konark Temple of Orissa. One more sun temple is at Martand in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Modhera sun temple is situated on the bank of the river Pushpavati, 25 km from Mehsana and 102 km from Ahmedabad.

According to the Skanda Purana and Brahma Purana, the areas near Modhera were known during ancient days as Dharmaranya (literally meaning the forest of righteousness). According to these Puranas, Lord Rama ,after defeating Ravana, asked sage Vasistha to show him a place of pilgrimage where he could go and purify himself from the sin of Brahma-hatya (the sin of killing a Brahmin, because ravan was a Brahmin by birth). Sage Vasistha showed him Dharmaranya, which was near the modern town of Modhera. In the Dharmaranya, he settled at a village Modherak and performed a yagna there. Thereafter he established a village and named it Sitapur. This village is about 8 km from Becharaji Modherak village and it subsequently came to be known as Modhera.

The Sun Temple was built by Raja Bhimdev I of Solanki Dynasty in AD 1026. This was the time when Somnath and the adjoining area was plundered by Mahmud Ghazni and reeled under the effects of his invasion. The Solankis, however, regained much of their lost power and splendour. Anahilvad Patan, the Solanki capital, was restored to glory. Royalty and traders jointly contributed to build grand temples.
Solankis were considered to be Suryavanshis, or descendants of Sun god. The temple was so designed that the first rays of the sun fell on the image of Surya, the Sun God, at the time equinoxes.

Don't you dare ask me for your vote

Dear fellow maharastrians,

Pls. scan through this blog and checkout for yourselves what these so called vanguards of 'marathi manoos' are doing under the name of our beloved community. Do we subscribe to this ideology??  I definitely don't. I am confident that most you'll will be with me on this.

Our community has always gifted India with immensly talented artists and intellectuals. Our literature is very much what classics are made of. Our humaneness is reflected in the movies we produce e.g. Swash etc. We have contributed to the idea of India by spreading the fragrance of our lovely culture. We have earned respect for ourselves because as a community we've always respected every other community. 

So now, how can we allow some twisted politicians to walk all over us and demand things for us or fight for issues which are absolutely not related to us? Who are they to divide us from the rest of Indians and put us into a sect called Marathi Manoos?? We are all Indians and our cultures amalgamated is what makes India.

JAI HIND

MNS workers on the rampage in a Nashik school

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090081498

MNS,Sena attack north Indian Rly exam candidates

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/mns-sena-attack-north-indian-rly-exam-candidates/375525/

MNS targets Pakistani comedian

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=

Raj Thakre''s MNS now targets Pak signboard

http://www.topnews.in/raj-thakres-mns-now-targets-pak-signboard-2114284

MNS workers bash PeTA activists

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2009/jan/160109-Nucleus-Mall-chickens-Smita-Christina-Jenita-Marathi-nauvari-sarees-Navnirman-Sena-Rupali.htm

Sena warns of ‘bigger movement’ than MNS

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sena-warns-of-bigger-movement-than-mns/376120/

Hindu deities pictures on slippers: MNS agitate

http://www.hindujagruti.org/news/5486.html

MNS halts The Last Lear premire

http://entertainment.oneindia.in/bollywood/news/2008/the-last-lear-cancel-premiere-110908.html

Mumbai city

No clarity

Excessive loquacity

Media verbocity

No veracity

Rich and poor disparity

Below-the-Line poverty

Pseudo charity

Corruption is a commonality

Religious fundamentalism kills all rationality

No humanity...no humanity

'Life goes on' is the ultimate reality

Blaming others together is our sense of solidarity

I pity this mentality

I pity this mentality

History will repeat itself

Death will dance on our heads

We will cry hoarse and make a noise

Call out to Allah, Bhagwan or Jesus Christ

They are our only saviours we decide

Is this the only reprise?

Is this the only reprise?

The spirit of Mumbai has come back to haunt us...

On November 26, 2008 I hurriedly tuned in to the news channels on receiving frantic calls from family and friends about Mumbai being attacked by terrorists. As I surfed through the channels, grasping the news reports and the horrific images that beamed from the television set. I sat in utter disbelief and the fear that one had tried to overcome after the train blasts not too long ago, once again resurfaced. Mumbai was besieged by terrorists who were running amok killing people. The audacity and brazenness of the attack chilled me. This time things had gotten too far.

Mumbai’s resilience and spirit has been eulogized by the media, this view was endorsed by celebrities & politicians at large. It was a good PR exercise, if you must. I am a Mumbaikar and yes I do agree we have been there for each other in times of trouble. Call this our solidarity with individuals seeking peaceful coexistence.

Other than the forever spoken virtue of the ‘spirit of a Mumbaikar’, we are also known to be very accommodating. From underworld dons to emigrants from Bangladesh we all live in each others faces and have come to accept that our destinies are tied together by the 'opportunities' this city provides us with. Though mind you, for an average Mumbaikar this large heartedness is not without conditions. It's an unwritten rule that acceptance means live and let live. This ideology is the lifeline of Mumbai.

One has seen Mumbai bleeding profusely several times over, but it endured these attacks and fairly quickly tried to get back on it's wobbly feet only to collapse face down and harder than before. The wounds have run deeper; the pain is excruciating and this time around hume dua nahin dava ki zaroorat hain. We cannot delay the process of setting up stringent procedures. We cannot keep wishing away our problems or hope that divine intervention will rescue us in times of trouble. It is time we open our eyes to the problems that lie naked in front of us.

We desperately need to work together with the government to tackle this problem headon. Why this hasn’t happened till yet, there is no explanation.

The government and politicians must stop giving lip service and develop a concrete plan to insulate us from such attacks in the future. PM Manmohan Singh has said there will be national committee that will work on this. We do hope this time we see results.

As a society we choose to glorify the security personnel and army when it's convenient for us for example independence day, attack on Kargil & now recently when they were trying to combat the militancy. Does the military have to prove they would die for us by actually doing so and then posthumously we would celebrate them and do hero-worship. The media rides on the emotions of the aam janta creates a hype, celebrates their bravery for a few days for higher TRP's and then moves on to the next breaking news. After the humdrum sets in we forget about these heroes, until another attack comes knocking on our door. We never encourage our loved ones to be part of the army, because it's a dangerous job. The alarming decline in the number of applications to the Indian army is proof of this. There were talks recently of lowering the entrance criteria and by doing so we will be calling doom upon us. Especially given, terrorists are becoming smarter & are also gaining access to better ammunition and in large numbers.

Alert citizenship is the need of the hour. We need to constantly lookout for any suspicious behavior and unidentified objects left lying in public places for too long. These are things which we can and should be doing to protect ourselves to maintain sanity and civility in an already very chaotic world. We can choose to ignore this calling at our own peril.

Discover your Happiness quotient

Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way, I've read this and heard this a million times over, as I am sure many others have. But now at 25 i'm coming to realise the force of this statement. What made me think about it now??

Well, it begun with some simple experiences, which I chose to pay attention to and make it a part of my memory.I would say that these little moments of joy have always been a part of my life, the only difference is now I'm aware of them and as I look around I'm surrounded by it every goddamn second. To give an example,when I was preparing for my CAT entrance exam for MBA I was voraciously building my vocabulary. Some of these words seemed familiar but I wasn't aware of their meaning nor did I care to find out...so I passed them without much thought. The day I knew their meaning, suddenly I started noticing them in many of the articles that I read. I realised that these words have been part of my daily consumption and despite that it never occured to me as to what they were doing there and how they gave a new meaning to the entire sentence. I was stunned by my own ignorace.

Well thats exactly how life has been unfolding for me in the past few days. Everything that I claim to make me really happy today has been expereinced by me before. Not once or twice but several times. The only and very BIG difference between then and now- is my realisation and happy acknowledgement of these experiences.

I've been a dancer all my life. I've learnt the Indian classical dance, Bharatnatyam for close to 10 years. I enjoyed doing it and yet somewhere down the line I gave it up.I was about 15 then. It didn't occur to me as to what it is that I was really giving up then. Now, after another 10 years, I've joined Kuchipudi, a faster version of Bharatnatyam and I realise that I didn't just give up my dance then, I had given up my source of creative expression. The plain joy of breaking away from the verbal communication to using my eyes and hands to talk and express makes me feel closer to silence that is so not part of our urban lifestyle. It is almost like meditating. The flicker of smile and enthusiasm in my gurus eyes, while I dance to her instructions, it gives me a high that cannot be matched to all those times when I've had vodka to give me a kick.

The mindless decision to stop dancing then had quitely shut out the one thing that made really really happy. But, now i've re-opened this door and the world beyond it is calling me . The more I'm going deeper into it, the more I'm loving it and the more I want to explore. I've discovered my happiness quotient and I know it's only just the tip of the iceberg.