Darjaleeling- Gangtok trip photos

Recently we visited Darjeeling and Gangtok; the photos taken during the trip is shared.

You can reach Darjeeling by Chennai- Kolkatta flight and then Kolkatta - Bagdogra flight; From Bagdogra, Darjeeling is about 4 hours drive. (90km distance)

Darjeeling is located at an elevation of 6,700 ft and is pretty cold place.It has lot of tea gardens.

Important places to see in Darjeeling are : Tiger hills, Rock garden, Japanese Peace Pagoda, Few monostries and Batasia loop

The next place we visited was Gangtok. It is the capital of Sikkim.

It has a moderate temperature and during summer hot in the morning- till 1PM and thereafter it becomes cool.

Visiting the tea gardens, Buddha temple and travelling in rope car were some of the activities you can experience in Gangtok.

On the last day of our trip we reached Kolkatta and did a half day City sight seeing trip. We saw Mother Terasa home and Samathi.

We also saw a beautful Birla Mandir constructed by Birla family

And finally Victoria Palace where Queen Victoria stayed when British ruled India.

An interesting Food walk in Mint street

Food walk is a famous concept in few parts of Chennai. One of the important Food walk place is in Parrys corner.. Mint Street. We recently went for a Food walk here.

Around 15 members joined together and started on a Saturday evening. We boarded the MRTS train from Velachery and reached Fort Station.

On landing at the Fort station, we started our work immediately (What else.. Lets take a Selfie Pulla !)

Mint street is about one kilo meter from Fort station; we walked slowly with lot of chatter through Govt medical college Mens hostel and Flower Bazzar police station and reached Mint street.

This is one of the largest roads in Asia ! It easily goes for a few kilo meter distance !

Mehta Bros Mithai Wala

The first shop we visited.. "Mehta Brothers Mithai Wala" is famous for Vada Pav.

Vada Pav is basically an Indian delicacy..contains potato dumplings/ bonda where the potatoes are boiled , mashed and sautéed on a tava with mustard seasoning, garlic, green chillies, curry leaves , turmeric and salt to taste. These are cooled and then made into lemon sized balls dipped in a batter made of Bengal gram dal/ Kadalai Mavu with a pinch of soda and salt and then deep fried. The hot bondas are ready to be served with a green chutney made of coriander, and garlic powder which together are stuffed inside a pav/ bun.




Friends really enjoyed Vada Pav very much.

Kakada Ramprasad

This is the only shop (among those we visited) which had a dining hall with AC. But the hall is full and a large number of people stand outside and ate, we were one among them.

We tasted Aloo Tikka, Badam Milk and Jilebi here.

Alu tikka is deep fried in ghee and made on a Tava. The tikkis then are cut into small pieces, with beaten curd poured on top of it and sprinkled with chaat Masala, jeera powder, dhania/ coriander powder , chilly powder, sweet chutney and garnished with little coriander and a big cube of fresh panneer/ cottage cheese. These are very delicious and filling !

Badam Milk was also pretty delicious !



A friend commented about Badam Milk like this" Milk and Almonds.. what a killer combo.. Best to have it in the morning before a run !" ( All are runners .. so running keep coming in our talks many times !)

Kakada Ramprasad is a must visit Shop in Mint street.. Don't miss it !

Lassi shop

This famous lassi shop is pretty close to Kakada Ramprasad. Its not a shop ! A man named Dinesh Soni (A gigantic man who is the owner) is standing in the streets. You need to approach him and order Lassi. He will call someone over phone and give orders. 

Without much waiting, lassi comes in Big tumblers. (The owner had suggested us to take Half Tambler lassi, as he had sensed that we are on a food walk and cannot drink it fully). Half tumbler lassi is 70 rupees while the full tumbler is 140 rupees. Though looked costly, the taste is heavenly & it is worth the money.

Lassi is made out of thick curds , saffron and sugar which are stirred well and served in a tall glass with ice cubes.

I love Lassi always and will drink it sip by sip and will take pretty long time to finish it. (Want to prolong the happiness as much as possible.. ) Here the sweet surprise was the Milk Goa which you can taste in the Lassi as the finishing punch.

We took a selfie with him; I told the owner that it is one of the best Lassi I ever had. He felt very happy, raised both his hands towards the sky and said " All because of God !"

Agarwal Misthan Bandhar

This is the shop where we ate Pani Puri; Its a small shop; since we were in large number, we need to stand in queue to eat Pani Puri which was fun.

Ganesh Cool Bar 

This is a small shop which sells sugar cane juice. Another famous shop, where people stand in large number.

Since we eat lot of sweets and walk a lot, we feel thirsty and having sugar cane juice helps to quench our thirst. Cost of the juice is just 12 rupees (with Ice) or 15 rupees (without ice)

Seena Bai Tiffian Center

We ate Kakra Sandwhich and Murukku Sandwhich here; both were very different items. 


The making of this items itself was quite interesting and we were all standing and closely watching. They use Cheese and other costlier items very liberally !

Though it takes some time to prepare, these are very rare items and not to be missed out during the Food walk. 

Podi Idli shop

Podi Idli is famous in Mint street and will be available in many shops. We ate it at the end in one of the small/ roadside shop. Drenched in gey, the Podi Idli was superb !

Some points to note:

* Week days evening will be very crowded and Sundays most of the shops will be closed. So Saturday evening is the best day for Food walk.

* Better to avoid going here in car. Difficult to park it as the streets are very congested. You need to park the car near High court and walk. Best method is to come in train, get down at Fort station and walk; Or you can catch an auto from Fort to Mint street; from there you can walk to the Food shops.

* It is not a very clean or beautiful street. Please keep it in mind; All kinds of vehicles will keep plying and we have to walk in between them.

* Need to share the food; we cannot eat it fully. Only then we can visit many shops

* Do not go alone or with a very few persons. Please go with friends or family of atleast 5-10; That helps to share the food and also for more fun

To conclude...

# The people who went there in this food walk were not very close friends. They know each other for a short span only (Many are new to Vibrant Velachery ie: One or two years; me. ..three months !) Still every one shared the food in the same plate without any hesitation which was cool.

#  The cost per person including travel/ water/ food was less than 200 per person. We ate so many varieties of food and had unlimited fun !

If things go well, we may even go for a similar Non veg (Athos) food walk !

Nanganallur – A detailed look…

Nanganallur...

Once a Suburbun.. now it is one of the important part of Chennai. An area which is fully covered by Residences.. No sign of any industries ...!

There are other small towns like Madipakkam, Alandur, Adambakkam closer to Nanganallur. But people prefer Nanganallur since it has broader roads and few other benefits including some beautiful temples !

Nanganallur - A small flash back

Nanganallur is an area developed in the last 40 years.. Prior to that it was full of paddy fields.. People initially bought land for 2000 rupees and came here. 

There was no Pazhavanthangal or Tirusulam Railway station then. People need to get down at either Meenambakkam or St Thomas Mount to come to Nanganallur. 

The area started developing after Nanganallur Co operative society laid out plots and it was Central & State Government officials who came to Nanganallur first. Then slowly others also bought plots and started moving in.

Pazhavanthangal Vs Nanganallur

Nanganallur does not have a separate railway station in its name. You need to get down at Pazhavanthangal.

But Pazhavanthangal and Nanganallur are like twins. You cannot separate both of them; 

Pazhavanthangal is a small area compared to Nanganallur. There are few streets closer to railway station with the Pincode 600 117 (Pazhavanthangal) and in some interior place, in some of the streets, suddenly the name Pazhavanthangal comes again.

Unlike Nanganallur, Pazhavanthangal does not seem to have any identity of its own. Its identity is largely dependent on Nanganallur. In fact majority of people who get down at Pazhavanthangal station goes to Nanganallur only; those who go to Pazhavanthangal will be a small minority. 

Roads and names

The roads in Nanganallur has very simple names; If you take Thillai Ganga nagar, the names are Thillai Ganga Nagar First street, Second street, etc. It goes upto 45th Street. Similarly BV Nagar also has roads named First street, Second street. Likewise more than 100 streets in Nanganallur are with number only !

A road with a different name... !

Commercial Road

Once upon a time the Commercial roads in Nanganallur is MGR road; nowadays it is the Fourth main road, Nanganallur !

Vasanth & Co, Viveks and Co, Murugan Idly shop, GRT jewellery ... You can see half the shops available in T Nagar in this road. 

On the same road, we have Chidambaram stores, which is one of the oldest provision shop in Nanganallur. Even today there is a bus stopping with the name Chidambaram stores.

Parks -  Work outs 

There are so many parks in Nanganallur. Particularly Independence Day park is the biggest one. This park had so many trees; but half of them were uprooted in the Varadah cyclone. 

Independence Day park gets so much of walkers at 5 AM itself. People also do Yoga here. Also they play shuttle and do various other activities here.

On the other side, people who have just finished their running are doing stretches. These runners are named as Bandits. They run on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 5.15 AM in this park. People who are interested in running can meet and join them on their pinned running days.

There are many small parks around the 100 feet road. Also there is a skating ground near 100 feet road. 

Bus Terminus 

Can you guess this place? It is Nanganallur bus terminus at 7.30 AM ! Completely Empty !

This is the adjacent Uzhavar Santhai;It also was not opened at 7.30 AM

Town or Village?

There are few things which make you to wonder is it a Village or Town. See the poster.. normally it will be villages where you can see it..

Birthday for One year old... How it is celebrated !

Temples 

There are more than 100 temples in Nanganallur. People call it as Temple city and Chinna Kanchipuram.

Main temples here include Guruvayoorappan temple, Iyappan temple, Raja rajeswari temple, Ragavendra temple, Devi Karumari amman temple, Muthu Mariyamman temple, Ezhuramman temple,  Lakshmi Narayanan temple,  Artha nareeswarar temple and Lakshmi Hayagreevar temple. 

And the most famous of all will be the Anjaneya temple with 32 feet Anjaneyar idol. This has become a landmark and important identity for Nanganallur 

One need not bother about dinner in Nanganallur. There are various temples that give Prasadams and if you visit temples like Anjaneyar, Hayagrivar etc you can complete your dinner. 

Water and Drainage

Metro water and Palar water connection is available in most places which is a very good advantage. However in some places during summer, metro water comes once in few days only and if the borewell is not giving yield during summer, such families/ apartments need to buy water from outside. 

Drainage connection has come to most part and is a great relief. 

Banks

- - - - -

Most of the Nationalised (Indian Bank, IOB, Syndicate Bank), Private Banks (HDFC,  Axis, ICICI, IDBI, Repco ) and even the recently started Equitas bank has a branch here. So it is a pensioners paradise !

Food

Lot of branded shops like Adyar Ananda Bhavan, Murugan Idly shop, Grand sweets restaurant are available; On the other hand, there are many good messes too.

Sri Durga Nivas is an old  hotel in Nanganallur;  Very simple, cheap and best. So people prefer this hotel.

Hotel Rajaputra, Cheese and Breeze, 80 degree east, Annaprasannam are some of the very good hotels in Nanganallur. 

A friend informed that the central part of Nanganallur will not have much Non veg hotel nor shops selling meat/ chicken. One can get them near Vanuvampet church or Velan theater.. but not in the area in between these two.

The same friend also informed that few years back 75 % of the residents will be brahmins while it has come down to may be 50 - 60 % now.

Theater

Ranga theater is one of the identity for Nanganallur; off late it is losing its significance as people prefer to watch the movies in Phoenix mall or PVR.

Madipakkam Kumaran has a better sound system (4 D) than the Velan theater (2 D sound). Since it is also few KM away from Nanganallur people prefer to go to it.

Houses - For rent and Sale

The plots which were sold for few thousands is now worth 1.5 crore to 2.5 crore. 

Once upon a time, if one stand in Renga theater, they will be able to see Nehru school and the Pazhavanthangal railway station. Nowadays difficult to see open spaces !

The per sq feet rate for flats is about 7000 to 8000. 

Rentals start as low as 8000 for a single bed room. A decent double bed room house can be found for 12000 and above. 

People also say that the rentals have come down a bit in the last few years. 

Schools and Colleges

Nehru School is one of the oldest and first school in Nanganallur. Modern School (CBSE) and Prince school (State Board) are the other popular schools. Both of them get State ranks regularly !




We also have schools like Kendriya Vidyalaya, Best Matriculation and Chellammal.

One of the long pending request for Nanganallur residents is to have a college here; Mr. Rama Rao from Nanganallur Welfare association has made request to start a college in Nehru school premises or in some other area, but the proposal is still in cold storage.

Comedy Corner 

A Board in BV Nagar saying that Goat milk can cure Diabetes :)

Nanganallur times

This magazine comes out once in 2 weeks on Saturdays and is circulated to more than 40000 families. Available in online also

Clock Tower.. new development

5 clock towers have been installed recently and the best thing is they recite Thirukkural once every hour.

3 sub ways and flooding

There are 3 sub ways in Nanganallur; Thillai Ganga nagar sub way, Meenambakkam Sub way and Pazhavanthal sub way. During heavy rains at times some of the sub ways over flow and the traffic gets affected.

During 2015 flood, most of the areas in Nanganallur was not flooded. It is the areas near Modern school and Market which was flooded. In other streets, water ran in the road but did not enter the houses.

Final analysis 

Nanganallur - Plus

Broad roads; Temples (Elders prefer to settle down here for this reason) - Very close to airport - Proximity to railway station (People can reach to most places in Chennai using this train) - Availability of buses

Large roads.....

Minus 

Not many really; Affordability (For buying a new house) is an issue. Hence for new houses many prefer nearby areas like Madipakkam or Medavakkam.

Few areas have water problem (Reduced substantially after the arrival of metro water)

To conclude.. 

This is one area which is liked by both youngsters and elders.. Has all important facilities of a metropolitan city and still keeps some of the traditional values.. 

No wonder people who come here do not want to move to other places !

For inputs :

Sincere thanks to:

Madhusudhan R

ஸ்ரவண் குமார் &

Mrs. Bhoomija

All you want to know on Fashion Designing Course and the Industry

What are the new courses available after Plus Two??....Have been writing about many courses in this series. This time let us know about Fashion Designing.

Aarathi Swaminathan who works in this industry for more than 10 years have answered to our questions. Aarathi is a multi dimensional person. Apart from her career, she is a marathon runner, cyclist and a swimmer. Her passion extends to photography too.

Over to Aarathi to know more about the Fashion Designing course and the industry:

If an youngster wants to join a course on Fashion designing after +2, what he/ she shall do?

He/She should look up for individual college/university entrance exams. The application form would be issued from the month of September of the previous year of He/she completing +2 (Eg. +2 board exam in March 2017 Application form will be issued September 2016)

How can one choose fashion designing as a career after completing any degree? Can some one who has completed Bsc or B Com can chose this? 

Answer is Simple Yes, if you have interest in creativeness and fashion you are most eligible to study further.

There are course like MSc, PG Diploma in Fashion designing which you can take up with any basic UG degree.

Which are the best colleges to do fashion designing in Chennai? Please share some good colleges in other parts of Tamil nadu and India also.

There is a huge list of colleges which offer Fashion designing as a course.

No. 1 Being NIFT (Nation Institute of Fashion technology) in India. Followed by Pearl Academy. Each of the University and college affiliated with them also offer course. Eg. Madras university, Bharathiyar University, Bharathidasan University etc.

What about the fees structure in different colleges....

Each college has its own fees structure based on college being Private or Government affiliated.

But in general the fee structure is slightly more when compared to other courses.

Tell us about the training one gets during the course and after the course. 

During your course of time all the basics of Fashion designing would be thought from Designing, pattern making, stitching and many more. But the real learning would be when you step into the industry for their internship and job. Fashion being a industry where there is constant change so the best learning is during your Job.

How do generally people chose Fashion designing as a career? Do they chose out of passion or they chose it as an alternate option since they could not get engineering or some other course they like?

People take fashion purely out of passion. As this being allied subject not many are aware of a program like this and it's mostly people with creative background and what to do something out of the box decide to take up these courses.

There is an assumption that more girls choose fashion designing? Is it true? Or both men and women chose this as a career equally? 

It's a false assumption I would say. There are many boys who decide to take us these course and the industry welcome both gender equally for job.

Please tell about the employment opportunities - both for freshers and experienced people.

There are huge opportunity as this market is pick up because of lot of online marketing and etc. Merchandiser are someone who are always in the demand throughout the year and throughout the globe.

Similar to fashion designer which many people know, what are other positions/ opportunities are there in the industry? What should one study for that?

Basically the fashion industry can be split into 3 parts

1. Designer module

2. Manufacturer module

3. Retail module

1. Designer module- you work a design for a private firm or you start your own design house and create your own cloths line. Eg. Ritu Kumar, Manish Malhotra 

2. Manufacturer module- you work for a product house or a factory set up. You have job opportunity as a designer in Product development team, you can be a merchandiser, you can get into sourcing, fabric , trims, production planning and many more.

3. Retail module- again you can get into front end Retail or Back end Retail. 

These are the numerous opportunities a person get just by studying fashion designing.

What is the salary range for freshers and people with experience.

It depends from which college he/she is passing out and also based on individual candidate capacity and potentially. 

I guess starting your own business in fashion designing is a great option. What are the opportunities and scope for being on your own? After how many years one can start his own business? What is the probability of success for start ups?

If he/she has a business background (Family) or interest in Business then may be immediately after they pass out of college if someone is ready to fund the business. Other it depends on what kind of business they want to start as this Industry is diverse in terms of business modules.

Tell us about your journey: How you chose this course and what you studied....

I wanted to do something out of the box from rest of the family members and being a creative person decided to take up fashion designing. I did my UG BSc in Fashion Technology and costume designing from Trichy. Purely into designing. Being an aspiring entrepreneurs I wanted to know the business in all dimensions and decided to pursue my PGD from Pearl Academy, Chennai in Fashion Merchandising. Worked in all business formed and have about close to 10 years of experience now I'm looking forward to start my own business very soon. I have taken all my failure in my stride and looked at the positive side and only focused on the learning. I have had high and low in my career front but it had been a great experience when I sit in a senior designation now in my organization.

Opportunities abroad for those who completed this course? In which countries do they have scope?

All European countries and USA has great opportunity.

How is the industry now? 

Domestic is doing very well and the market is growing with all online retail.

How is the work culture and stress level in this industry?

A tough question to Answer in terms of stress as it's individual perspective. For me I always took stress as a learning experience. But in general this industry is little disorganized and each company has its own set of systems and procedures and hence people find it difficult to adopt and perform. But for people who look at it as a challenge with come out with flying colors.

 Any final points/ inputs for those who want to enter this industry.

Welcome to the world of Fashion there is lot to experience and know what goes in into a cloths that you wear... All the best!!