Travel – Page 3 – Karnataka First

8-yr-old Mangalurean boy becomes youngest in GCC to climb Mt Kilimanjaro peak

Eight-year-old Ayaan Mendon from Mangaluru became the youngest person in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa on August 4.

On the morning of the August 4, Ayaan stood against the sign reading ‘Uhuru Peak’ in bold, holding the Indian flag after finishing a eight-day hike to Kilimanjaro.

Ayaan Mendon is from Mangaluru who resides in Dubai. He is currently studying at the North London Collegiate School Dubai. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro has been on his bucket list since he was six. Wanting to be part of a former hike with his parents to Mount Elbrus and being young, he was promised to be taken on for the next hike.

On a practice hike in Nepal, he did very well, which gave his parents the confidence to take him to Kilimanjaro. There starts the planning and preparation for Kilimanjaro.

The training was not easy. Ayaan loves to train with his swimming squad (Proactive Academy) and his trainer (Coach Tariq) for boxing and other workouts. Ayaan is very energetic and is always ready for adventures. Ayaan had trained himself for two years unknowingly that it was to achieve this feat.

Gadag: Cow dung Okuli – A unique tradition the day after Nagara Panchami

A unique celebration of Okuli (spraying of colours) is followed in this city since long. In the Kumbara Oni of Gangapur Pete of the city people throw cow dung on one another and celebrate this festival.

Nagara Panchami is a festival of girls. They wear new dresses and go to Nagara Katte and offer milk and celebrate the festival. On the next day is Shashti, Karikattambali day. On this day the boys get together and throw cow dung on one another.

Preparations for this festival begin a month before. Cow dung collection begins a month before the festival. The youth of the Kumbara lane go in groups and ask for cow dung from families who have cows and calves.

The cow dung war that takes place between the boys looks exactly like Holi. However, instead of colours liquid cow dung is sprayed. First the cow dung is made into a big heap on the main road of the Kumbara lane. Various colours are sprayed on the heap. Later, the boys group themselves into two teams and go to nearby farmland and get ready to play the cow dung game.

The youths get ready for this unique Okuli in unique style. They wear garlands of various vegetables like aubergine, cucumber, onion, ridge gourd, tomato etc. In addition, they wear peculiar costumes for drawing attention. They also wear dresses of females. Once ready, they all go to Durgadevi temple in a procession and offer pooja. After the pooja, the cow dung play is flagged off.

The cow dung game goes on for about two hours. Cow dung has special mention in Ayurveda medicine. It is impossible to imagine the life of a farmer without cow dung. The farmer community has given cow dung the position of a deity. This cow dung Okuli that is celebrated from centuries is mainly done to proclaim the sanctity of cow dung. In addition, people of this locality believe that all kinds of skin diseases are cured if one pours cow dung liquid on the body.

Ranganathittu bird sanctuary is Karnataka’s first Ramsar site

Ranganathittu sanctuary also finds a place in the Important Bird Areas (IBA) list of 42 sites in Karnataka that are identified by the Bombay Natural History Society.

After a wait of over ten years, Karnataka got its first Ramsar site on Wednesday.

The ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) declared Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary in Mandya as a Ramsar site. With this, the forest department, local administration and tourism department will not just be able to ensure better conservation but also scale up its eco-tourism potential to international standards. Located in the mid-stream of the Cauvery river, Ranganathittu is an integral part of the wetland system and spreads across 517.70 hectares.

It also finds a place in the Important Bird Areas (IBA) list of 42 sites in Karnataka that are identified by the Bombay Natural History Society. Ranganthittu houses 188 species of plants, 225 species of birds, 69 species of fish, 13 species of frogs, 98 species of medicinal plants and 30 species of butterflies.

It is an important breeding site for around 20 species of water birds, 17 of which breed on trees growing on islands on the spot. It houses healthy populations of mugger crocodiles (Crocodylus palustris), smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata) and the endangered hump-backed mahseer fish (Tor remadevii).

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Royal Mysuru Sailing Club to host ranking event from Friday

The National Youth Championship that concludes on August 4 is supported by the Yachting Association of India

The Royal Mysore Sailing Club (RMSC) is hosting its 4th event on the KRS backwaters – the National Youth Championship – which was allotted to it by the National Federation- Yachting Association of India (YAI).

The event is a ranking event and will take place from July 29 to August 4.

The RMSC is also shortly launching a programme titled ‘Vision 2028 Olympics’ which is an endeavor directed towards producing Olympians from Karnataka, in line with the National Sports Policy launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to a release here.

Following the ranking event, RMSC is organising a National Fun Regatta event from August 4 to 7 which will help bring participants and visitors from across the country to come together and explore Mysuru as a tourist destination. By elevating Mysuru’s presence as a metropolis city and a noteworthy vacation spot, the event will also aid in boosting the city’s tourism, the release stated.

The Royal Mysore Sailing Club (RMSC) is also taking the initiative in launching a campaign directed towards the growth of Mysuru as a city. The campaign is titled ‘City of Sails’ which refers to the significance of sailing as a sport and the importance of the KRS backwaters associated with Mysuru.

The Royal Mysore Sailing Club (RMSC) is approved by the Karnataka State Sailing Association (KSSA) and the Mysore District Sailing Association (MDSA).

Bengaluru through the nose

City-based artist and author Indu Antony’s book Vasané, takes readers on an olfactory journey of Bengaluru.

You must have heard that scents are more closely linked to our memories than pictures or sounds. The smell of the filter coffee you shared with your friends after an exhausting lecture, remembering the perfume your first love interest wore, or remembering home every time you smell your mother’s signature dish being cooked, all trigger memories. It’s not only our fondest memories that are drenched by smells, but so is our city.

In her book Vasané (smell in Kannada), artist and author Indu Antony captures the many smells that make up the city of Bengaluru.

“Every city has its distinct smell. Mumbai, Goa, all these cities have smells that characterise them, but with Bengaluru, there are so many smells that make up this city,” says Antony about her 70-page book. “Because of Covid, our sense of smell was lost. Not just by those who had it, but wearing masks also restricted our ability to smell things around us,” says the author.

According to Antony, this project published by Mazhi Books, connects with the city beyond the visual, about associating smells with the city. She collaborated with Avinandan, a perfumer whose family business, Sathyanarayana Traders, is a wholesale retailer of sandal, oud, and musk perfumes. Together, the duo created 12 unique smells in 1 ml bottles each, which readers get with the book, so that they can apply them to the pages and experience the city through the olfactory sense.

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Jawa and Yezdi bike enthusiasts take a trip down memory lane in Bengaluru

This year’s Jawa and Yezdi bike festival in Bengaluru followed a theme of adventure and offered a holistic experience to bikers from the time they entered the venue.

Hundreds of Jawa and Yezdi bike enthusiasts gathered for their annual festival and went down an adventurous nostalgic lane in the city on Sunday, to mark the 20th International Jawa Yezdi Day, which falls every year on the second Sunday in July.

“The bikes here are the centre of attraction and you can see there are over 750 Jawa and Yezdi bikes. We also got some special and very rare bikes displayed on one side of the ground which people can admire,” said Brian A., president and co-founder, Bangalore Jawa Yezdi Motorcycle Club (BJYMC), the organiser of the event.

Between 1960 and 1996, bikes from Jawa and Yezdi were produced in India. The 250cc two-stroke bikes were well-liked by youngsters due to their dependability and affordable maintenance requirements. In 1996, their production was stopped at the Ideal Jawa factory in Mysore.

The Jawa, the Jawa 42, and the Perak are the three vehicles that Mahindra-owned Classic Legends unveiled in 2018 after reviving the Jawa and Yezdi brand.

HAA head is new YMI president

Philanthropist and Hindustan Aviation Academy (HAA) chairman Dr KC Samuel has been appointed the International president of Y’s Men International (YMI). The movement was founded in 1922 and Samuel will be taking charge for its centenary year.

“The name ‘Y’s Men’ has become synonymous due to selfless service and sacrificial giving, and has touched and lifted the lives of thousands people across the world for over a century by acknowledging it as our duty,” said Dr Samuel.

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State’s first exclusive park for specially-abled children opens

On Saturday, Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot inaugurated the State’s first disabled-friendly park in Jawaharlal Bal Bhavan (JBB), Cubbon Park, built for children with disabilities by Mindtree and Bal Bhavan Society.

Built at a cost of ₹3 crore under the guidance of health and child development experts, the park provides a safe, inclusive, and physiotherapeutic place where children with multiple forms of special abilities can play uninhibited by their mobility aids or the risk of accidents, officials said.

Designed in the shape of a turtle, the park consists of different zones for a wide range of physical, mental, therapeutic, and touch and feel activities. The park has a specially designed sand table for children on wheelchairs and a special swing. Tactile pathways make it easier for visually-challenged children to navigate their way around the park. To mitigate injuries from falls, all playing surfaces are made of a synthetic, non-toxic, and skid-proof rubber called EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer).

Forty years of Corner House: Narayan Rao on how he built Bengaluru’s beloved icecream brand

During my conversation with Narayan Rao, the founder of Bengaluru’s popular icecream brand Corner House, I tell him, rather unwittingly, “Corner House is a legacy brand–”

It is, however, not preposterous to assume that Corner House is, indeed, a legacy brand in Bengaluru. It has, after all, 19 parlours across the city and two more in Mysuru. It has been around for 40 years, withstanding competition from other international icecream brands. It sells, on average, 1.5 lakh litres of ice cream every month.

The first was on a hot June afternoon in Delhi in 1980. Rao had just returned from Canada after studying hotel management. He was waiting outside the office of the general manager of a five-star hotel for his interview when he met his schoolmate, who was the personal secretary to the manager. She had a hunch that he would not like working there. “She said, ‘If you ask me, you should just turn around and walk out of here.’ I did just that. .” If he had not bumped into her, he might not have come to Bengaluru and started Corner House. “Forty years later, I called and thanked her.”

The second moment of serendipity came a few years after he started Corner House, which was then a fast-food joint. Business was stuttering. He ran out of the money he borrowed from his father. Banks, then, were not liberal with loans as they are now. He had no collateral, either. He was at a restaurant, contemplating the future of his fledgling food business over a coffee, when a fellow diner joined him. They exchanged pleasantries. It turned out that the guy sitting across the table was a bank manager whose brother was Rao’s classmate. Seven days later, Rao got the money he needed to keep his business afloat.

“Bangalore has always been good to me,” he says. It is where he met the love of his life, whom he is married to for 41 years. It is where he established his livelihood. For someone born and brought up in Delhi, it is now his home.

Kempegowda International Airport bags best regional airport in South Asia award

Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (BLR Airport), on Friday said it has bagged the best regional airport in India and South Asia title in the 2022 Skytrax World Airport Awards.

The awards ceremony was held at Passenger Terminal EXPO in Paris, France, on June 16. “The event is one of the most prestigious quality awards for the airport sector, with CEOs, Presidents, and senior management from airports across the world in attendance,” according to the statement.