Kanva Dam - view from a hill top nearby

Link to an article I had written about the dam in Deccan Herald, Bangalore's oldest daily newspaper.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan292004/metro16.asp.

I visited Kanva dam for the first time in January 2000 and was highly impressed. The dam was in its full glory with the water filled to its brim. The vast size and crystal clear water really alluring and inviting me to jump in and take a dip. But due to paucity of time we couldn't get into water then.

Since then I have visited Kanva several times and seen it in various stages of filling. I saw Kanva totally dry and almost bereft of all water in 2003-4 when the region experienced severe drought and no rains. Now thanks to last years heavy rains the dam is slowly filing up and regaining lost glory.

Nevertheless the dam didn't lose allure and its serene ambiance during all these years and it lured me to visit hgere again and again. Being in a valley mobile signals don't reach here and this is one of the few places near Bangalore where one can see lush greenery all around the place and the water body acts as a fulcrum. Last week I visited the place again and had a great swim and came back rejuvenated.

But of late there has been an increased awareness of the existence of the dam and there has been an increase in number of visitors. This is putting a lot of pressure on the local eco-system in terms of plastic waster, litter, water pollution because most bathers/ swimmers use soap and detergents which form a film over the water surface.. fish get affected and in turn bird life too.

I hope at least readers of this blog will not pollute the place further...

Did you know that this 500-year-old fort is only 35 km from Bangalore???

Did you know that this ancient temple is in electronics city?

Hi friends/ readers,

Welcome to my online blog. I am a travel writer and a journalist with over 200 published articles to my credit.

For the daily dose of rice and sambar which keeps me alive and kicking and breathing and climbing and bikeing and travelling, I work for India's sole education newsmagazine - EducationWorld. The focus of our monthly is education and related issues. My job involves a mix of attending press conferences, interviewing people, students, professors, businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats etc.

The best part of my job is ofcourse working on the Leisure and Travel section in our magazine. It gives me immense pleasure and happiness to work on this section which has provided me numerous opportunities to travel to far away locales including Andhra Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Coorg etc in India and Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Fujayarah in the UAE (United Arab Emirates).

Apart from the job I also do a lot of freelance writing for a host of publications (both print and online) in India and abroad. What I found in the past few years of travelling and working is that there is no proper sustained documentation of tourist destinations in India. Tourism in India is a totally under utilised field and successive governments during the past six decades of post-independence have miserably failed to capitalise on our vast huge size, snow clad himalayas, lush green forests, golden beaches, over 5,000 year historical heritage and numerous other natural attractions.

This has resulted in a deepset ignorance among everyone including us, Indians that we don't have much tourism because we don't have tourist attractions. This is the issue I wish to address in my own small way by writing about Bangalore and Karnataka. This blog is dedicated to Bangalore and its surroundings. I have travelled extensively in and around Bangalore during weekends and have identified several places which are worth visiting over a weekend. Many places can be done in half a day or one day and offer soul soothing ambiance.

I hope readers will help me by giving feedback about my writing and guide me in the right direction in documenting Bangalore and its environs.

Starting this week I will write up the places I visit every weekend. I hope this small effort will be complemented by people who will visit the places reading about them here.

warm regards