Sachin Tendulkar of Birding : Jamnagar

I'll be emotional & philosophical in this post. Ill start off with the most common verse in bollywood - "When u want something very Bad, the whole of universe conspires u to achieve it". Jamnagar, since last 365 days has been on the back of my mind. Each time i will end up disappointed by birding in Mumbai, i would promise myself that my next trip would be to the best birding site in India i.e: Jamnagar and it should happen sooner than i think. Since i could not make it to Adesh Shivkar's Jamnagar trip due to convenience of dates, i decided to plan Jamnagar on my own. Meticulous that i am, i did my initial research and asked Jamnagar resident Mr. Manish Trivedi be my guide.

Jamnagar Landscapes

Day 1 - Dhicda Roadside (2:00 PM Onwards)
We took the only flight to Jamnagar, Indian Airlines. The shape in which airline is currently can be easily attributed to the service which it gives. After standing in the Mumbai Checkin queue for an hour we could finally managed to just sneak in the flight and reach Jamanagar at 12.00 Noon. We had high expectations w.r.t food at Jamnagar and overall i can easily say that Jamnagar food is not satisfactory. I would highly rate towns like Solapur w.r.t food, but sadly Jamnagar is rated way below on my food list. "Aaram (Gujarati Thali)" & "Madras (south Indian)" are the only two places serving good food when in Jamnagar. Coming back to Birding, we were amazed with the sites of lakes & ponds full of ducks & pelicans on the roadsides of Dichda & Century salt area. One can see ducks as far as eyes could see. Presence of ducks in Jamnagar roadside ponds can be directly proportional to presence of beer cans in Mumbai ponds. At certain places u cant see even water, as ducks and waders feed in enormous numbers.

Some Highlights -
- At the Airport approach road itself u can easily spot 10-15 painted storks close by.
- Common Teals, Pochards, Spot billed ducks, little grebes, Northern Shovelers, comb ducks, coots, Ruffs & stilts in huge numbers thriving together and easily spotted in large numbers. One need to really sit patiently for hours to ensure they come closer for photography.
- Godwits, shanks, Ibis (all types), stints, sandpipers, plovers, cormorants, darters in comparatively lesser quantities & spreaded out.
- We were shown the black necked stork nest with 1 chic by Mr. Manish Trivedi in this area.
- Flamingoes remained elusive with presence in Mumbai, but we found around 200 flamingoes here on one of the Dhicda roadsides. Wonder why they leave this beautiful region to come to dirty sewri in Mumbai.
- Dhichda as is mostly roadside birding, can be very dirty too. Roadsides of Jamnagar are not at all maintained properly due to virtually no cleanliness and non existent sanitation facilities. Also it takes lot of patience & time before ducks & other birds come close enough for photography.

Jamnagar Day 1

Day 2 - Khijadiya Bird Sanctuary (Morning & Noon) & Lake Lakhota (Evening)

Some Highlights -
- Spotted the lone nightjar in Khijadiya entrance road. Arrive before sunlight to see nightjars.
- 1000s of pelicans, painted storks, egrets, flamingoes & herons take flight from their night rest outs in Khijadiya. Various birding towers across Khijadiya gives amazing views of the flock flights.
- The best part about Khijadiya is the presence of water bodies at virtually eye level. This aids photography and gives breathtaking infinity views.
- Pied Kingfishers are found in plenty and one will get multiple chances of viewing the kingfisher's famous hovering & dive.
- Spotted the asian paradise flycatcher in one of the nature walks across in Khijadiya.
- A Single crake (cannot identify the kind) was sighted amongst various partridges.
- If theres water, there are ducks & coots and that too in numbers
- Mallard remained elusive but Great crested Grebes can be easily found
- Amazing closeups of herds of rosy & dalmation pelicans but not close ups of black necked stork
- We went to ship breakyard (15 Kms from Khijadiya) in search of Indian Skimmer however the Skimmer was not to be found. Later on we heard news that Mandar & Adesh Shivkar (of Nature India fame) have found 5 Indian Skimmers at Balchadi area. Too late for us. We had to goto Lake Lakhota.
- The rosy starlings hovering above lake lakhota is one scene which should not be miss in evenings. They have developed likings to the "Gujarati farsans like ghatiya etc" and when fed, 100s of starlings can empty the packet in seconds.
- Local population also feed ducks bread in lake lakhota, the same can give real closeups of ducks and their beauty can be admired.
- Raptors overall remained very difficult find in Jamnagar (except Marsh Harriers which are found in plenty). We did get closeups of black shouldered kites, brahminy & black kites.
- At Lakhota Lake : Though a birders conscience does not allow to do this - but one can keep farsans like Ghatiya very close (1 feet) and various gulls will come very close and pick up the food and go (in flight). Its a treat to watch gulls this close in flight

Jamnagar Day 2

Day 3 - Jamnagar Outskirts - Porbandar Area (Morning) & Narara (Late Noon)

Some Highlights -
- Jamnagar outskirts (places like Porbandar etc) are photographer's delight. Waders & ducks come real close and offer immense clicking opportunities.
Each & every color and feature of Common Teal, Pochard, Pintail, Crested Grebe, Coot can be admired at this close proximity at a location near porbandar.
- Atleast 400 Demosaille Cranes were sighted at a distance of around 15 feet.
So one can head to these destinations as against going all the way to Khichan in Rajasthan. Around 100 Common cranes were also sighted in flight here. This can easily be Crane capital of India.
- Narara is one of the very few places in India to see crab plovers. Because we didn't go during High Tide, Crab plovers were not to be found. Narara is waste of time, if gone during low tide.

In all around 90 species of Birds were sighted in 3 days. If i had spent another 2 days and visited areas like Charkala Salt plans, ranjit sagar dam, i could have easily hit the 150 species mark. Gujarat government, unlike most of the other Indian states is aiding birders by installing state of the art birding infrastructure at various places. Khijadiya is amazingly well maintained and clean. Jamnagar is indeed Sachin Tendulkar of Birding.

Jamnagar Day 3

(Link to the top 10 Pictures clicked at Jamnagar will be posted soon. Follow "Manish Gadia Photography" on Facebook.com)

MANISH GADIA PHOTOGRAPHY

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ME MYSELF & ONLY ME

Just don't have anything to Blog on at the moment so thought of writing about myself,
my daily routine, my extra curriculars.

Sports form a very important part of my daily routine. Sportsman spirit, consistency, persistence and hard work are some values I have learnt through playing and watching sports. I was regular with badminton earlier and have participated in various inter college level tournaments. In last couple of years I have taken up squash and have become good in it. I am a member of a sports club, where I have access to swimming pool, tennis etc. I go regularly for adventure holidays indulging in activities like trekking, rafting and rock climbing. I have completed now 10 treks of varied levels across India from western India’s highest peak to the giant 10,000 Sq Ft trek in Himalayas. I am planning to complete the International scuba diving certification in coming summer from Thailand.

Back in 2006, I had a full fledged greeting card website up and running - www.funnywebpages.net. At the peak it was ranked in top 10 visited websites on search engine hitbox.com. The same was offloaded due to the financial and time constraints. I am working on the same to bring back the site 'live' again. I use to be a freelance website designer and have developed various corporate websites. Currently I am also working on a research paper analyzing wrong moves by MNC Banks to cope up with recession at Micro level. I plan to submit the same to various management journals. Some articles posted on my blog also have been published by HSBC Journals for staff circulation.

I always keep a book handy with me for reading. In a city like Mumbai where most of the time goes in travelling, a book is a valuable company. I enjoy management biographies a lot. Biographies of imminent personalities like Konosuke Matshushita, Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca etc have inspired me a lot. Lately I have started reading fiction – mostly by young authors. Other than this I have subscribed couple of Auto, business, adventure related monthly magazines which keeps me updated on my interests and trends. In my quest to learn a music instrument, I am now on my stage two of my guitar learning classes.

Regular community work has always been close to my heart. I believe what I do can make a difference. Since 2001 I have been involved with World Wild Fund as a “Panda Passport Holder”, now reaching the Level 4 status (level 4 indicating a long term and strong supporter). I have participated in their numerous online campaigns in the form of writing to various world bodies and governments to act on environment related emergencies. “Saving Indian tigers” and “Saving Australian Reef” are some of the examples of the same

INDIA - A DIFFERENT TAKE

Ever wondered what will you tell to your foreigner friends about 'India'? They all are aware of Indian culture, elephants, spirituality, Information Technology, poverty, slums blah blah blah blah. So what will you say - different? At HSBC, I encountered such a situation, when i was popped the question by a management trainee from one of the CIS countries on secondment. This is what i think i should have told him, rather than the usual cliche / famous stuff about our country. There's so much to say than the usual basics.

I described India to my foreigner friend as a "voyage of contrast". He will experience co-existence of an avant-garde star hotel, surrounded by slums; production facility of Mercedes Benz in the same compound as the indigenous Tata Nano (world’s least expensive car). India is where human density per square foot is among the highest yet it is the only hope for Asia's wild cats, where same sex relationships are now legalized even though society opposes opposite sex relationships between people from different castes.

I would introduce India's thousands years old culture, which still influences the life and habits of her people. My friend can expect to find a cow roaming freely on Indian roads and people touching the sacred beast, seeking blessings. A brush with our rich heritage would reveal over 1500 dialects. Add to this a population of over 1 billion today, and that gives an idea of different languages in which communication takes place.

My new-found friend's Indian experience would get complete on indulging in food, travelling and Cricket. Indian cuisine is as diverse as its culture, geography and climate. While travelling includes adventure in backwaters, snow-mountains, wildlife, beaches and desert, the immediate way to connect to any Indian would be to talk about the sport, Cricket. I would advice my friend to start his voyage in India by visiting a temple. One should not be surprised if he finds idol of a cricketer or an Indian movie actor sharing space with Gods.

ORGANIZATIONS NEEDS ROCKET SINGHS

ORGANIZATIONS NEEDS ROCKET SINGHS

When I joined Landmark Group Retail (lifestyle) post my MBA, retail was at a nascent stage in India and I saw an opportunity to exponentially grow with the industry. I wanted to start my venture -a country-wide franchisee company. The idea was to start with a few small franchisee outlets and as momentum builds, I will move on to take multiple regional master franchisees.

I prepared a business plan for owning franchise of sales-cum-service workshops of a 2-wheeler company – ‘Bajaj Auto’, did my primary and secondary research for project report to be submitted to the company and banks at later stage. Bajaj accepted my plan but agreed to proceed after I had finalized a property and closed the financing deal with banks. Selecting property required numerous visits and continuous coordination with agents, but my six-day work routine (Sunday mandatory working) at Landmark made these tasks challenging. Real estate prices were on pinnacle at that time (they still are) and demand far exceeded supply in land-locked Mumbai, so, to close any property deal one had to respond very quickly. Concentrating both on my professional career and proposed personal entrepreneurial venture was becoming difficult.

Finally, I decided to concentrate on my profession and dropped the business idea. I had worked hard to secure bank finance and convince the Bajaj team but failed to see the project through at the last stage. With proper time management I would well have been on my way towards my career objective. I learnt valuable lesson in ‘multitasking / time management’ from the experience.

Having learnt lessons and plugging all the gaps, the entrepreneurial fire started burning again when I joined HSBC; An organisation can reap benefits of inculcating a quality of entrepreneurship in employees by giving them enough freedom and room to take their own decisions and to do whatever one can to the benefit of the organization with adherence to the fundamental rules. Infact now I proudly call my self an ‘Entrepreneur in HSBC’ ,as the term holds a broader meaning for me than just someone who is having something of his own. World economies and industries are reeling from the financial crisis, business leaders are struggling to survive and growing means operating on a different plane altogether; this is the time to use entrepreneurship within an organization as the only effective ammunition to combat the same. I am an entrepreneur if I get things done, I am an entrepreneur if I ward off bureaucracy, I am an entrepreneur if I think out of the box and bring something different to the table, I am an entrepreneur if I stand beside my customer and also have guts to take a difficult call. I am an entrepreneur if i have my own way which gives better results, I am an entrepreneur if i can come up with a better way of doing things then just to follow a herd.

Its time for all Rocket Singhs to fly!!!

GREEN ADVENTURE

Green Adventure

Trekking Western India’s one of highest peak – ‘Rajmachi’ was my first appointment with not just adventure but also nature. We were a group of 5 enthusiasts, all first-timers with respect to ‘trekking’, to add to that, I had fear of heights. Though the trek was only for around 8 hours to and fro, steep climb, rocky way, trekking in night, unaware of the correct path and non availability of fresh water made it very difficult. While trekking, to make things easier, I decided to not look down or back. It is human nature to do something, what one decides not to, especially if one fears it. And I did it! I looked down and bang!!! my head started spinning. I lost control and tumbled like the fabled nursery rhyme character - 'Jack'. Luckily my friend supported me. Dizzied and ready to give up, I decided to wait till my other friends returned from the peak. However, something struck me inside and I decided to continue. Adversity had brought the best in me. In the end, I not only completely ended my fear of heights (hopefully) but I also found one of my biggest passions – Adventure. I have now completed around 10 treks of varied difficulty levels. Attitude of never giving up, consistency, persistence and crossing all limits are some of the values I have learnt through these activities. More importantly I have come to respect nature’s beauty which lies hidden. It was only for ‘trekking’ I could explore all the serene unexplored places and get a quick change from the polluted, traffic ridden lives of Mumbai city.

It will be a shame if each one of us do not contribute or give our due back to the environment. Even an hour per week dedicated to save the environment will make a difference. Recently I have started my own facebook community (Save Aarey Milk Colony) to protect one of the last remaining green patches of Mumbai city – ‘Aarey milk colony’. Development has taken a heavy toll on Mumbai gardens with most of it completely wiped off. The intention behind this community is to save the last remaining green area from real estate / government related encroachments and deforestation. We have got support from another NGO working towards the same endeavor and joint efforts are now being planned.

By working for a greener tomorrow, I guarantee you a sense of satisfaction in fulfilling a moral compulsion.

(I Support SAVE OUR TIGERS http://www.saveourtigers.com/ Do you?)

BIGGER THAN THE GAME

“Why high performance shines even when the sun doesn’t?”, “It’s not a setback. It’s a test” – reads the advertisement of one of the major consultancy firms featuring Tiger Woods. The golf wizard dared to excel and showed the world anything is possible – a colored person beating the whites in their own game.

Scout boy Steven Spielberg in his early teens made an amateur movie and charged 25 cents per person to watch it while his sister sold popcorn. With his sheer ‘belief’ and a minimalistic US$ 500 budget, he made movie "Firelight". Firelight didn’t fire, but then the sparks were visible in the movies to follow – E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Schinder’s List, and Jurassic Park. It’s the constant urge to supersede earlier work and venture into never before crossed boundaries that lead to Spielberg choosing not to do the third sequel of Jurassic Park & focus on a world war epic film ‘Saving Private Ryan’. Saving Private Ryan garnered considerable critical acclaim, winning several awards. The film grossed US$480 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of the year 1998. It's not over yet, the spark still lives on. Speilberg will try to appease millions of Tintin fans with the upcoming project 'The Adventures of Tintin', slated for a release in 2011.

It is also this spark that inspires a truck driver James Cameron to raise the bar for the entire entertainment industry on a whole, through films such as Terminator, Jaws, and Titanic. The visionary is now working on ‘Avator’, a revolutionary 3D movie made using photo-realistic computer-generated characters that will change the movie going experience altogether. The adrenaline Rush in few never dies. It’s inbuilt in their DNA. Only this can explain return of Michael Schumacher to F1 circuit after formally retiring in 2007. Earlier, Lance Armstrong came back strong from testicular cancer to win the prestigious Tour-de-France. ‘Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever’ is all that Lance Armstrong had to say after the win.

The ‘Yes we can’ Barack Obama, the “Make Mistakes & Learn” Albert Einstein, the “Failure is Opportunity” Henry Ford, the “Anything worth doing is worth 100%” Konosuke Matsushita, and the ‘Why not?’ Bernard Shaw are golden words of the few who DARED TO EXCEL. As the advertisement of that consultancy firm finally reads – “We know what it takes to be a Tiger”. The question is, do you?

(The article was published in the HSBC Corporate Journal)

AGGRESSIVE OPINION ON "THE TARANTINO WAY"

10th June 2009 - 9:00pm: All exhausted from work. A friend calls and asks me to come over to meet him for a bit, the fatigue takes over and I’m not even in a position to move a muscle, till the time he bribes me saying "I have a DVD of Quentin Tarantino movie - Hostel". The name Tarantino runs a cold chill in my body everytime I hear it. In my books, 'Tarantino' fetches the highest price. I still bow when i hear names like 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Kill Bill'.

9:15pm: I reached friend's apartment, made small talk, snatched the movie from his hand and left for home. I glance at the cover - all black and red with picture of a person tied to a chair - looks like lot of bloodshed!! I just hope it’s not a horror movie, as I have never watched one. My sheer paranoia with respect to horror movies is well known. As I begin to walk away, my friend shouted from behind "Don’t worry it’s not horror". I must say, what a sigh of relief that was!

10:15pm: Digging myself in popcorns & beer, I finally began watching the movie. It started with 3 friends Mike, Sam and Ed planning an East European vacation. They start their vacation in Slovakia, staying in a Youth Hostel for couple of days. The first night they have a good night out with their room mates staying at the hostel, happen to be two very gorgeous girls, so even better. In the morning Ed is gone. After several unanswered calls & lots of searching, help came in the way of Hostel Receptionist telling Mike & Sam about Ed checking out early morning. Party continues the second night - girls, dance and booze. This time Mike is missing. All this seems too strange to be happening for Sam "my friends just can’t abandon me", he said. On questioning one of the girls from the night-out, Sam is guided to a worn out building to find his missing friends. Reluctantly he walks inside through narrow corridors, nearly throwing up due to the filth and the pungent smell. By then, I have the pillow half covering my face already and could visualize my friend laughing on my plight of watching a horror flick alone.

11:15 pm: Sam opens one of the rooms and is shocked to see Mike lying dead in a pool of blood and a man drilling his stomach. The blood plethora was enough for me to part ways with the beer glass. Further, Sam is captured and tied to a chair and is approached by a man with chainsaw, all set to remove organs from his body. I was sick by this time, too much gore for my liking. Quentin Tarantino probably overdid this time, at least for me. After 60 minutes, my quota of watching this Tarantino flick is over. I quickly switched the movie off and tried to sleep, but the images just won't leave. After 5 episodes of the high on life show "Entourage", my mind was at peace (though, I had some dozen more sleepless nights later)

In retrospect, Quentin Tarantino actually didn’t disappoint. He just lived to his reputation. His films have large amounts of flowing blood that are graphically violent in an artistic sense. Tarantino violence is always full of tension and grit. Much as he wants to entertain audience, his primarily goal remains - 'To Leave a Mark', and mark he left with just first 60 minutes of 'Hostel'.

(The above is written jointly by me & one with comparatively non-aggressive opinions :)