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I visited Bannerghatta National Park with my family on 13th June 09. I had some relatives from my native therefore decided to hire a cab, we left our home (Near Hebbal) at 8.45am and reached Bannerghatta National Park by 09:30am. We were lucky to have no crowd at all or perhaps the deserving ones to come so early, we got the tickets within 3 minutes. In week ends & holidays Park charges are different than other days. Here is the table:

Week Days                        Week End/Holidays

Adult                                              100                                            135

Kid [5 to 12 years]                          35                                              35

Senior Citizen                                 80                                              80

Fort Still camera you got to pay INR 20 & for Video camera INR 110. Once we got the ticket, we went straight to the bus queue, the bus operator told that he will start when there are 30 people (Small buses carry 30 while large buses carry 50 people). Better would be that you jump to the front seats or to a window seat to have a better view. Grand safari took us to 4 parts of the Park [Dear Park, Bear Park, Lion Park & Tiger Park]. Going early morning also gives you the advantage of watching animals in open and not in cage since early morning the sun is not that bright and shiny. We got perfect view of many dears, bears (few sat in the middle of the road posing for cameras), white tigers, lions, cubs, cheetah etc. and it was wonderful trip of 40-50 minutes.  Kids with us enjoyed thoroughly. On the way back to Park from safari, there is a Butterfly park (Charges are separate there) that we skipped since my kid: Parv was not keen to see butterflies after watching tigers and lions.

There are lot of shops outside Zoo where bus drops you after safari, you may try sugar cane juice, coconut etc. and again enter into the zoo (with the same tickets) & watch snakes, birds, aquarium & other animals inside zoo. There is an elephant ride also.

Dont forget to carry your camera (& put it on image stablization mode as the road on safari is rough), better you wrap the wrist grip to your wrist to avoid dropping the camera.

Carry your sun glasses & hat for protection from scortching sun. Go light (perhaps with multipocket shorts or 3/4th)

: Vivek

Recently checked North Meadows of S.K.Properties (aka SK Properties aka S K Properties) near Delhi Public School (North), Yelhanaka and found it interesting in the beginning but on investigating a bit more made me scared of it. There office address is:

Observed following issues with it:

1. The whole land is agricultural and cant be used for residential purpose, only a very small part of it is converted into residential type. So the risk is that if you buy it, you may never get the municiple facilities & will always live in the fear that some day municipality will demolish it for illegal usage.

2. All the corner plots/sites are blocked by the seller in advance to sell it off on higher prices later. So you got to live with only in between sites and with limited choice.

3. There is no water storage in the plan

4. High tension wires are crossing the property and it’s main gate

5. It is not approved by any banks though the seller claims to have it approved from State Bank of Travancore but when I talked to the bank they clearly said that this property is not approved and they will only fund it against an existing property as mortgage.

6. Also the seller has 2 weird conditions
a. You will have to take construction loan along with land loan and the funding for the land would be 50% of the total project. E.g. If you are getting land for 20 Lakhs you will have to get the construction loan also from bank, let us say you took 10 lakhs for construction, bank will finance only 50% of 20 lakhs + 10 Lakhs which means 15 lakhs (Though bank never said they approved the property in the first place)

b. You will have to take permission from original Seller (SK Properties) if you want to sell off the land/property to anyone else.

7. Seller is stating that they will complete the work (including all the ameneties) within 9-10 months though this property is remaining like this for past more than 1.5 years.

My personal opinion to you is to not risk your investment in this property though it looks beautiful. The risk is much higher than we imagine.

For a long time I wanted to look back at my life and everything that I experienced but as you know it is not that easy and a working life does not give enough opportunity often to do so. Yet determined to relook, reflect and share with you, here I am with my first blog.

As the time passes, you will see me putting all the random thoughts so that perhaps someday it will become a good book to read.

I am not a frequent and experienced writer therefore your ideas are welcome to help me improve. Keep writing back to me at vivek@vivekkhare.org