A babbling brook .. gives the final touches to this picture ...

The waterfall at 'Rung-dhab-dhaba' ... definitely a spot worth checking out ...

Another one of those ... hills and clouds pictures ...

And He said ... let there be light ... and there was light ... and it was good ...

Huts amongst the greenery ... a village scene

Clouds kissing the peaks ... picture perfect ...

More babbling brooks ...

The view of the lake from around the MTDC resort ...

Villagers in Bhandardara ... simple ... and friendly ...

Recharging the batteries ...

Well, ever since the contest got over, I have been having this race against time ... trying to catch up with life ... or more so the college assignments ... the 10 - 12 days that I missed out on completing assignments and stuff ...

Then immediately after the contest, I had basketball matches ...
During these matches ... on a Saturday, Sunday weekend ... when my dad had a holiday on Ganesh Chaturthi, he decided to take us all on a trip ...

Earlier, we decided to go to Raigad ... with the ropeway and all ... but the place got full ... and we were left stranded a day before we were to leave ...

So, anyways ... we just took the car ... packed in a pair of clothes, some food ... basic necessities ... and headed off towards Nashik side ... to Bhandardara ...

Bhandardara is supposed to be a hill station ... thats what my dad told me ...
I had never heard of it ... and so, wasn't looking forward to this trip that much ...

The only proof that such a place existed, was on the map ... with a symbol of a huge lake ...
I didn't know what to expect ...

It took us 5 hours of driving from Pune to reach this place ... I was in for a very pleasant surprise ...

The place was just beautiful ... greenery everywhere ... and not just green ... glowing light green ...
Everywhere you could see ... green :)
This small village - town is situated on the banks of the Bhandardara Lake ... which is one of the biggest lakes I have seen ...

I am sorry that I was not able to save the info pamplet ... but I'll recall and reproduce it to the best of my ability ...

Bhandardara
The place is at a height of about 800 mts or so ...
The peak season is from July to October end ... after which the greenery turns to yellow and then later brown ...
There is another peak period ... but I don't remember it right now ...
So, your best bet will be to get there during the rains ... its just heavenly there ...

Getting there
We travelled by car ( Indica ) from Pune.
Its around 190 - 200 odd kms. from here ... but it takes around 5 hours to reach there ...
This is due to some bad stretch of roads ... lots of ghats ... and also driving through a couple of towns having only 2 lane roads ...
But overall, the roads are good ... and the drive is pleasant ...
Also, the ghats are pretty easy ... only there are lots of them ...

Putting up tent
We were planning to stay at the MTDC place ... they have hogged the best location by far ...
But, because we hadn't pre-booked the rooms and also because it was a Saturday, and Ganesh Chaturthi, the place was full ...
MTDC has around 33 rooms ... with a 20 beds - room and a 12 beds - room incase you are coming with college or friends ...
We also found the MTDC rates a bit on the high side ...
A normal ( non AC ) room ... away from the good view goes for around 600 - 800 bucks ... for 3 people in a room
The AC ones go for around 1200 ... and if you want to stay at the lake side cottages, they go for about 2000 for 4 people ...

The MTDC manager told us that it was all full ... and directed us to an agent who showed us a couple of places around ...
They had rates comparable to MTDC ... but the rooms were very shitty ... damp and mold covered ...
This was due to the high rainfall this place receives ...
You could actually feel the damp room with a very heavy - airy feel to it ...

The MTDC person told us that if we didn't like the other places .. he would try to manage something ...
From this, we deduced ... that the manager gets some commission from the agent for refusing us ... So, if you want to stay at the MTDC place, you will HAVE to pre book the rooms ... preferably from an MTDC office in your town ... as we tried calling this place the previous day ... and never got connected ...

Anyways, so we finally crashed at this place ... which was walking distance from MTDC ... had decent rooms ... better than the earlier ones ... dry ... beds were decent ... and they also had TVs ...
The rates were half of what MTDC and the other places were offering ... and he got down more 100 bucks or so ... per room ... after bargaining ...

So, we got 2 rooms - 2 beds each for a total of 650 something ...
I don't remember the name of the lodge .. will ask my dad later and put up all the info later in the blog or the comment ...

Things to do
We stayed there for a night ...
So, we had an evening ... and the next morning ....

So, we basically drove a lot ... and I clicked many, many pictures ...

There is a large dam worth checking out ...

There is also a fort - Ratangad ... which you'll need 2 hours to go up ... and the same for coming down ....
Another nice place is Kalsubai ... its the highest peak in the Sahyadri range and is a hot trek-spot ... but again you'll require half a day for this ...

We skipped all the walking things :)
There is also a waterfall ... "Rung-dhab-dhaba" which was pretty amazing ( see picture ) ...
We caught it the other day ...

You can also go boating ... on a row boat ...
We did that too ... in the twilight .. the previous evening ...
It was a very nice experience ...

In the non-season period ... when the fish are not biting, the fishermen take you boating ...
We made good friends with the fishermen ... and also got invited to tea ...

The Weather
Well, I certainly feel ... that nature ... gave us the perfect weather ...
I can't stress more ... the weather, light, clouds, wind and everything else were so perfect ...
All through the drives, we were listening to a jugalbandi of flutes and tablas on the car stereo ... and it was heavenly ... just perfect ...
If you have seen "Lord of the Rings", picture the shire without the hobbits ... and you'll be very close ...
Just take a look at the pictures : http://sj-bhandardara.fotopic.net


Greenery everywhere .... cloud kissed peaks ... babbling brooks ... simple villagers ... away from town ... what else do you need ?

Getting life back on track ...

I need to turn the steering left ... until it gets back on the road ... let the steering go and let it auto rotate to center itself ... and then just push gently on the accelerator ... and let it cruise ...

Only, I am not driving a car ... its my life ... and there is no power steering ...

The past couple of weeks were just hectic ... as I had said before ... single minded, rodent like obsession ... about the ... game !
And it did pay dividends in the end ... If I may be allowed, a little chest thumping is in order ... "First in State"

Now, that does really sound good ...

Anyways, the entire journey wasn't very smooth going and us winning was very unexpected ...
Here is the rundown ...

We made this "Foosball" game for this "game development contest" held annually at the Sinhagad College of Engg. which is renowned for two things : One of the most picturesque campuses you will ever see ... and the ultimate, back wrenching, pot holed filled 20 km ride to get to the college ...

We were informed about the contest one week late by these Sinhagad College guys, and so, just had one week to come up with a working model of the game ...

After a lot of deliberation and killing a few of my fellow classmates, we decided to make the "Foosball" game of the "Friends" fame ...

So, after a week, we finished ... and submitted 70% of compiled code to these people for the elims ... only to have learnt we have been disqualified ... as more than 2 teams ( 3 according to them ) had participated from our college ...
This was very strange ... and I was to later realise that they had conveniently confused us with a Modern College ... whereas our college was Modern Education Society's College of Engg.

So, after killing a few more people at Sinhagad ... and explaining to the others ... that we were in no way related to the 'other' Modern College, we managed to get our entry cleared ...

We qualified for round 1 ...

During this period ... we coded a bit more ... type type type type ... and the code reached the magic figure of 2500 lines of code ...

We then took our copies and headed towards the beautiful and picturesque campuses of Sinhagad ...

Once there, after explaining our game to 3 judges ... who were least bothered ... and I believe, slept through our presentation, we underwent, one of the most grueling rounds of cross examination ....

These judges might have been taking out all the 'khun-nas' which their external examiners took out on them ... and really killed us ...

Here is a part of a conversation ...
( Seeing a game option : Ball speed )
Judge : What is this option for ?
We : Sir, this option controls the speed of the ball in the game ...
Judge : What is the default value ?
We : Sir, 6 ... gives you good game playability ...
Judge : What data type is it ?
We : ... umm ... Integer ...
Judge : Ok ... put 32,000 there ...
We : huh ? ( never expected that to come ... )
Judge : Lets see what happens in your game ...

( So we put 32,000 in the ball speed which had a default speed of 6 ... how were we supposed to expect a maniac entries ? ... and the game goes for a toss ... no collision detection ... all the players and the ball just vibrate on the screen )

Judge : What is this happening ?
We : Umm .... um ... huh ... hmm ... Sir, the ball is moving so fast ... that it is not coming in contact with the players ... and therefore there is no collision detection ...
Judge : Oh ... that way ...

Surprisingly, he bought that answer ...

But the other judges also took our case ... We were sure of not qualifying ...
Other teams had made Contra type shooter ( ripping all the bmps from the original game itself ) and another team had made a proper football game ...

Surprisingly, we came 2nd in the elims ...

We came home that night ... coded ... coded ... and coded ...
Implemented tonnes of new features ... including letting the player customize his own field ... select playback music track ... and put all the maniac error checking ...

Went again next day for the finals ...
The judges were different and two were actually from IBM ...

However, they didn't take our case .... but didn't show any interest in our program either ...
The IBM guys slept through our presentation ... and we predicted our doom ...

However, when the results were announced, we came first ... the Contra guys who had come first in Round 1 came third ... and the Football guys came second ...

I later heard .. that the judges were really impressed with the way we had made the game ...
Everything modular .. classes ...
We had thrown in some interrupts also ... were able to play music in the background ... along with foreground music ... and everything ...

The rest is all history ...
The trophy is in the showcase, money in the bank ... and I might have finally something to put on my resume ...

This entire incident has restored my faith in the saying "If you can dream it, you can do it"
Nothing seems impossible anymore ...

After 10 days of mad programming, 3000 lines of code ... and a very playable game ... just have to get my life back on track ... complete a few overdue assignments ... and study for some orals ...

The truth is out there ...

Hmm ...

Feeling very sleepy, but will go ahead and type a teeny weeny blog anyways ...

Tomorrow is Janmashtami ... Other than, we not getting a well deserved holiday, it would not make a difference to me ...
The entire day today, was dark and gloomy.
We had a good cloud cover throughout the day ... was just the perfect weather to slip away in the break, to the chai-wala across the street and grab a cuppa.
Did just that ...

Anyways, by the time I reached home, it started pouring ... in great quantities at that ...
I was just catching some grub and thanking the Almighty for getting the temperatures down ( which were rising of late ), when my mom exclaimed,
"It never fails !"
I looked up at her from my plate, at this sudden change of tone and inquired, with a raised eyebrow as to what she meant by that ...
She then enlightened me, to the fact, that it has to rain every Janmashtami ... and it has always rained ... It never fails !

Now, the Mahabharat is an epic ... and an epic is a story which never happened ... something like the Lord of the Rings ...
And in Mahabharath, if I remember my mythology correctly .... When Krishna was born and he was taken out of the prison, it was raining heavily ....
Something like today ...

Makes you kinda wonder ... if there is a supreme force out there which takes care of all these little details ...

Now, I do believe in God ... as in, there is some supreme being out there ( or atleast we all like to think of him that way ) which lets us have the human emotion of Hope ...

Most of us have never experienced him closely, and then most of us are happy that way ... but He does, sometimes, come out and prove His existence ...

I, very vividly remember the Ganesh drinking milk incident.
That took place all over the world didn't it ?
It was like in your face, and the scientists were baffled and none of the explanations they came up with ( the planets being in allignment and the crap ) seemed to satisfy the people ... ( me included )
I was totally blown away ...

So many times, painstakingly, I am working ... taking all precautions that nothing should go wrong ... then after a while, feel so supremely confident that nothing will go wrong ... and then bam ! Something happens ... so beyond my control and everything is ruined ...
Its His way of telling me ... "look who's boss ... now, don't try to act smart and don't start to think that I cannot alter your life ... "

So many things are there in this world, and so many things take place everyday, which have no possible explanation ...
And until, science becomes so advanced as to be able to explain everything, the truth will be out there ...

To infinity and beyond ...

Aaarrrrgh !!!
I want to scream out loud ...

Finally have some time and breathing space before the next 'big thing' comes my way ...
Me and a friend, signed up for this C++ game development contest after parting with 50 bucks per head as registration charges ...

Now, these dudes organising the contest, tell us about it a week late, and we have to submit our game ( atleast 60% of it ... compiled ), by tom ie Monday ...
We had about 6 days to do this in ... 1 day for research and other 5 days for the frantic coding ...
Now, after 5 days of rodent like, singly focussed behaviour, I can now smile benovelently as the game ticks on ...
I can proudly say, that we typed out 1200+ lines of code, in 5 days ... and still a lot has to be done ... more lines to be added ...
Now, the complexity and brilliance of any software can't really be measured with 'lines of code' but they make for good boasting rights anyways ...
That is until people realise that you are really an idiot and 80% of your code is repeated, because you haven't really learnt what a function actually is ... and the for(){} is uncharted territory ...
lol :)

We have to submit 60% of the code by this Monday, and if we are selected, will be summoned to show our masterpiece in an exhibition cum gaming contest at the end of the week.
Not to mention, take a shot at that, lip smacking, delicious prize of 5 grand flat ...

What has amazed me that I have been so focussed in these days ...
I never remember being so focussed ...
Everywhere I went, whatever I did ... I was constantly thinking about the G.A.M.E !!!
game, game, game, game, ga.....
The CO teacher was teaching us about memories ... and I was going ... game game game ...
It has turned into quite an obsession ... and I won't be resting until we have put our finishing touches to it ... and typed in the wacky "Winamp" style credits in it ...

Anyways, I learnt quite a lot in these last five days ...
Lots of research went into this ... as I had absolutely no idea how to go about making a game ...

For all those who want to get into writing games, I found out that the site, http://www.gamedev.com has excellent material ...
We ran into many difficulties ... we are using Turbo C 3, you see ....
However, most of them sites, have resources only on OpenGL, DirectX, etc ... which even if we were allowed to use, would be way out of our leagues as of now ...

All the teachers were supportive and granted me one week's extension to submit the various projects and assignments and I am very thankful for that ...

Have to push off now ...
Things to study for and bugs to iron out ...

As my good friend Buzz would exhalt ... "To infinity and beyond ... "