Monthly Archives: August 2010

Ghumakkar

Ghumakkar - Conversation with Patrick Jasper

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Vibha in a conversation with Patrick Jasper.

Section 1 – About Patrick

[Vibha] We know you by two names “The Other Patrick” and “Patrick Jasper.” Tell us more about the person behind these names.
[Patrick Jasper] Ha Ha. Yes, thats right. When I started writing and more specifically commenting on stories at Ghumakkar, I would sign them off by saying ‘The Other Patrick’, because Patrick Jones was already there and it would have been confusing to have two Patricks. :-).

Talking about the real Patrick, I am a Tamilian who belongs to Kanyakumari and have stayed most of my life there. I am a banker by profession and that is my trigger for being at various places. I am currently at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and before that I worked at Mumbai, Maharashtra. My banking profession gives me opportunities to be at various places and I could not have asked for more.
I am married and my 6 year old son, Jonathan, keeps me on my toes for travel and everything else. That is what ‘the other Patrick’ is all about.

[Vibha] You have been traveling for quite some time now. When did it become more than a hobby for you?
[Patrick Jasper] I think I got introduced to travel during my college days. Every couple of months, we would take off and go for a mini trek. I believe the change-over from casual traveling to serious traveling happened after I purchased my car, a fiat Palio. That gave me enough mobility to explore and to be more independent and I utilized every bit of that new found independence.

[Vibha] Recently you completed a trek to Sar-pass. How did you motivate yourself to come out of an urban lifestyle and move into this kind of strenuous stuff?
[Patrick Jasper] I would give the credit to my college days for this. As I was telling you that we used to do these short duration treks, mostly 2 to 3 days, or hikes. I was an active member of ‘College Trekking Club’ and we would do these in the areas of Kodaikanal, Mysore etc.
After college, I got into a job and then later got married and my parenthood kept me away from these sojourns, but that desire was quietly sitting there.
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Travel

Long Drives in India - A ready reckoner

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I started driving long distances after Oct 2001, when I bought my first car, a Maruti WagonR. Before that I have been a co-passenger, and my city driving was mostly on my 100 CC Bajaj Caliber. My drives were mostly around 250-300 Km radius in initial years. In Feb 2004, we bought a Mahindra Scorpio and over time our long distance drives have gradually increased to 500+ KMs a day. The longest single day drive for me, so far, has been from Delhi to Jaisalmer , and Delhi to Allahabad.

Its Aug 2010 now and a lot has changed in last 8-9 years. The changes are for better and what appeared like a real long drive in 2002 now looks like a morning drive to a lot of us. Drive from Delhi to Agra is not considered as a long drive and we all aspire to do Delhi-Manali or Bangalore-Mumbai in one day. We have better roads, improved infrastructure of supporting services like telecom, power and most importantly self driving is beginning to become a preferred mode of transport, at least for short family vacations.

So in light of all that, I thought that I would write a small tip-list based out of my personal experiences. A lot of it is standard stuff and you would know them by heart , e.g. check tyre pressure but I am hoping that some of these are new to you and are helpful.

The tips are not in a order, and I have not taken a lot of time thinking/planning so this is mostly from what I could remember.

Let me divide the tips in three sections.
A. Before the drive
B. During the drive
C. After the drive
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