I don’t remember the first time I heard the name Sherlock Holmes. There has to have been a first time. Maybe someone mentioned it, or perhaps I picked it up in a movie or a comic book. The details of our first encounter remain shrouded in the mists of my early childhood memory. But, however it is that I got to know of the illustrious detective, I do know that at some point I read a small story in school about the doctor who Arthur Conan Doyle used as inspiration for his creation. It was that description of the mental prowess of a Doctor Joseph Bell that made me want to read about Holmes.

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Chance Pe Dance is a Hindi movie by director Ken Ghosh, starring Shahid Kapur and Genelia D’Souza. It’s the story of a struggling actor in the Mumbai film industry, and the people he meets on his journey. If you saw last year’s Luck By Chance, you’d be forgiven for thinking this will be more of the same, but it managed to surprise me on several levels, and left me smiling.

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When you visit an un-familiar place, and that too on a tight schedule, you try to pack in as much as is possible into the time you have. This means hitting the spots you’re interested in seeing, and darting between them as fast as you can, while sqeezing in the necessities of sleep and food. What ends up happening is that your memories of your trip are reduced to the big events and all else is forgotten due to the information overload. But every experience is made up as much, if not more, of the little bits that hold it together, as it is made up of the large dramatic events. Having written about all the big stories on my trip to Bangalore, I thought it was time to finish with some of the little bits that come to mind.

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After our day at Nandi Hills and a bit of driving around Bangalore, we thought we were done. Set to leave the following afternoon, we had little to do on the one Sunday morning that remained, besides relax, spend some time with the family, and say our goodbyes. The evening before, we were sitting around the house talking to our cousin, discussing such important world issues as camera equipment, when he mentioned that he was going rock-climbing in the morning. He said his favourite spot was close by, it was a nice bit of wilderness, a decent place to take some photos, and that there are usually plenty of birds to spot. With our trips to Mahim Nature Park and Borivali National Park on the previous two Sundays, we were now on a hat-trick of Sundays spent in nature. It seemed a shame to break a good streak, so plans were made for everyone to take one last sojourn in Bangalore to a little hill in Turhalli.

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The day after our quick trip to Lal Bagh was our only full day in Bengaluru, so we decided to explore further afield. That morning we set off for that ubiquitous bastion of Bangalore city tourism, Nandi Hills.

Nandi Hills is a small mountain away from the city which is a popular weekend visit amongst the locals, and a common destination for visiting tourists. It has some temples and historical fortifications at the summit, stairs and paths you can climb through the trees, and wonderfully dangerous hairpin bends you can drive through to the top. What’s not to like?

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After an interesting journey into Bengaluru, we drove homeward. Once reunions were done, and some lunch was had, we made plans to move out. Since we only had a few days to work with, we didn’t want to waste it sitting around. But, we also didn’t want to push ourselves too much, so we chose a safe destination within the heart of city and headed over to Bengaluru’s ubiquitous Lal Bagh botanical gardens.

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Can you have too much of a good thing? I hope not, because my first paper cut in ages was definitely a good thing from my viewpoint. It was fun to do, and the results were attractive enough. Now that I’m in the paper cutting zone, so to speak, I thought I might as well exploit it and do something for the dawn of the new year.

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