Architectural Design Award for 'Dr. Reddy's Laboratories - Corporate Office'

Firstly, this was not a solo endeavour by any individual but an idea driven soulful effort by an extremely talented and enthusiastic group of people who believed that through their sincere effort they can do something really meaningful which will create a sensible inhabitable landmark. 

"The Corporate Office Building of Dr. Reddy's Laboratories" at Hyderabad is a place which people love to visit for their day to day work or occasional visits and carry a fond memory of a joyful inhabitation. 

This project has won "The Principal Award" in "The Institutional Architecture Award" category for "Design & Development of Institutonal / Office Buildings" this year organized by "Architecture + Design" through a Design Competition across the nation. 

CnT Architects, Bangalore, is extremely happy to share this achievement with each and every partner of the project. 

I am very proud to be a part of this entire journey and looking forward to the Award Ceremony in Bangkok on 5 th December 2013. 

Below are few pages of the November 2013 edition of "Architecture + Design" magazine which reflects the awardees, Jury comments and featured project as a snapshot with a brief note about the project. This magazine is available for IOS Devices as downloadable electronic copy. 

Sometime I would like to elaborate about the entire project to give a better feel about the entire journey along with many others. 

Mysore Classic - 200 kms

I could see couple of stars blinking faintly. A crescent moon through the leaves. A dusky sky. Smell of grass. My eye-lids are heavy.

God damn ! I'm not in a resort and relaxing along the pool side. I'm riding a brevet. My first brevet. Mysore's first brevet. Oh yes. I slept off seven minutes ago. I have another 20 kilometers to go in one hour twenty five minutes.

When I met Venkatesh Duraiswamy of Tirupur at around 160 kms mark, we stopped for a break. We had to cover last 40 kms in 3 hours 45 minutes. Pretty easy. Looked like. Yeah. But dear, its a brevet. It was not so easy for me. Already 160 kms done. Body was tired. We decided to stop again at 180 kms mark and Venkat said, see we just need to go another 40 kms to become Randonneur. Both of us were having the common dream. We were rolling quite good and catching up each other as our speed was more or less similar. After a few miles I lost Venkat as I had to stop to put back my small kit bag which was falling off the bike and I could meet him only at the end control point again.

180 kms mark. I'm too sluggish to roll. Just becoming impossible to sit on the saddle. Legs are not rotating. I stopped just before a gradual climb. Parked the bike against a road side pole. I did not know what to do and was feeling so numb. Thought of sitting on the edge of the road. But the traffic was heavy and passing by very closely. Looked around. Nothing much. Crossed a small dry gutter and climbed on a small mount. Sat on it. Slowly removed helmet. Put down the specs. 5.56 pm. I do not remember how I slept off. When I got up - I could see couple of stars blinking faintly. A crescent moon through the leaves. A dusky sky. Smell of grass. My eye-lids are heavy. Slept for seven minutes. Got up slowly. Picked up the bike. Got on to the saddle. Started pedaling. Slowly. Yes I could move. I could see some hope. 6.04 pm. 20 more kms to go. End control point will close at 7.30 pm. Road is endlessly moving upward. I opened up. Come what may, I got to do this at any cost. I've done this before in my practice rides but now the situation is little different and I've already done 180 kms. But if I have to test myself then I got to do it. This last 20 kms of 200 kms brevet is something memorable for me as I've not ever done that kind of ride before. Rode like mad. In the dark could not see my cyclo-comp readings but surely I was averaging around 23-24 kmph. Very very unusual because my normal speed is around 15-18 kmph. But when you do not have any choice then plan of action becomes very clear and simple - in this case, just ride hardest as you can and reach the end control point somehow. I had to stop for two signals for couple of seconds and apart from that I was riding like a bullet which was destined to hit Mysore Palace Gate at 7.08 pm. Traffic, moving people, market, shops, moving carts, noise, lights - everything were blurred. I was not within myself. It was a different sensation. I was connecting with my inner self. It was stronger than what I knew I could be. Its a new me. I'm at the brink of creating a new milestone for myself....... Lots of claps....... Lots of cheers....... Lots of greetings........ Lots of light at the back.......... I'm there. I touched the end control point. A day long journey. Someone asked for my brevet card - yes it was Abhilash. Bharath got me a bottle of water. Lokesh came and greeted me. Wonderful boys of Mysore who organized the first Historic Brevet of Mysore. I'm glad to be a part of this. I'm proud to be a finisher of this ride. I'm happy to know about my weaknesses little better. My respect for other fellow Randonneurs have increased by many folds as I realized that doing a brevet is not a cake walk - its tough and its fun.

So now, I'm a Randonneur. Hah..... feels great. I messaged my lovely wife that I've made it to the end and she asked me about how does it feel ! I said - I'm feeling like on top of the world. Trust me, it is the most basic accomplishment by a bicycle rider who aspires to be in the long distance rides and for sure all my fellow riders who have done it before many many times and do much more distances with ease, they deserve to get a tremendous amount of respect and applause as it is a pure testimonial of one's endurance.

I started riding bicycle almost a year back and have been involved in some way or the other for most of the cycling events in Bangalore and have been closely following all the great rides by many wonderful people and constantly learning in every way possible from them and truly they have contributed to build up my cycling ability. Till recent past also I have never thought of participating in any brevet as I thought that still I'm not ready for it. But when I saw this year's brevet calendar which flashed that Mysore is going to have its first brevet which is at least theoretically suggests on an easier route and few of my friends started talking about it, it triggered my mind. I got in touch with Sanath who were planning to do this along with his son Manoj. We teamed up and went for a practice ride of around 100 kms a week prior to the brevet and chalked out our plan to participate in the brevet. We three reached Mysore one day in advance to the brevet and went to check out the start point in the afternoon. 

There we met my friend Sohan Sintre along with Manjula and Sundar Rajan who drove down from Chennai to participate in the brevet. We chated for sometime and then went out for a small spin just to be familiar with the route within the city. Sohan observed my riding for sometime and suggested that I should take saddle - breaks more often to avoid groin pain and what a wonderful advice it was which helped me a lot in the brevet ! Manjula is a fantastic rider and it was a privilege to ride with a rider who had finished Triathlon before. Sundar Rajan was very charismatic with his fitness and loads of experiences of brevets. He asked me in the evening, will you be interested in the medal tomorrow, I said, if I can finish then certainly I'll apply for it. Sohan was pumping air in to his cycle tyre near by and he just stood straight, looked at me and said - ' you are going to take the medal tomorrow '. I smiled. As I had no clue at that point of time, whether I'll be able to finish it or not. The whole intention was to participate in this historic brevet and irrespective of the result any way my name will be attached to the history. So finishing the brevet and getting the medal was not there in my mind. I just wanted to enjoy the ride.

The starting point was festive. Anil Kadsur came from Bangalore all the way riding his new cycle along with Ashok T just to greet and wish all the brevet riders at the start point and then rode back to Bangalore but Ashok T was riding the brevet. It was a nice gesture from Anil but we would have been happier if you would have done the brevet. 

I met Ankush Sharma who brought his MTB instead of his heart-throb new Focus bike. Ravindra Rao was jovial as usual with everybody. We met almost seven riders from Tirupur and Coimbatore including Venkatesh Duraiswamy, Chakkravarthy Birur, Sulaiman Bhimani. Just before the flag-off, the organizers gave sandwiches to all the riders which was really good to break the fast early in the morning. Around 90 riders registered, close to 70 riders started the brevet sharp at 6 am on 10 th November 2013 for a journey of 200 kms in 13.5 hours. It formed a spectacular peloton along the Mysore - Hunsur highway. Almost all were in the warm-up mode for first few miles and then started going on their own pace. I got a first problem at 8th kilometer mark when I started getting a cramp on my right leg calf muscle. Immediately stopped for a while and then started again and after couple of kilometers got another cramp on my left leg calf muscle. I was mentally prepared for this as it is quite common to me and occurs almost in most of the rides at the initial stage may be due to lack of warm-up or irregular riding or some other technical issue. Somehow managed to suppress them and went on with the rolling terrain and nice air in the hair. Met Sanath and Manoj and rode along with them for quite sometime. At around 40 kms mark I faced the worst challenge of the ride which was almost ruining my hope to do the ride. All of a sudden my front derailleur got jammed and that time the chain was on the bigger chain ring and it was not moving on to the smaller chain ring. The rear gear shifting was fine. What a set back ! Stopped for a while, tried to fix it but could not do it as my technical ability was not good enough for this. Helpless. But full of energy. I started riding again. The downhill slopes were manageable but the uphill slopes were just unbearable as I was not able to change gears and had to put lots of extra effort to overcome the slopes and it was draining out my energy very fast. I stopped along with Sanath at 70 kms mark on a culvert and took my first power nap of 3 minutes before re-starting. After 85 kms it was really tough for me to push the bike up with the jammed cog and chain. And that point onwards I started seeing few riders coming back from the opposite direction and that means they are almost 30 kms ahead of me in terms distance and close to 1.5 hours in time. Well, I got to slog it out. Lets be it. All the negative thoughts started shadowing on my mind. Once I thought that I'll ride till the U-turn point at 100 kms mark and call off the ride. But that point also was seeming too too far away. More and more number of riders coming back with a jet speed. All of them raised their hands and waived and that gave me lots of encouragement mentally. Probably the best one was by Sundar Rajan. I saw him at a slopping curve where I was going up and he was coming down. First he waived his hand, then he showed a thumbs up and then he could quickly read my mind and showed four fingers to indicate that I've to go just another four kilometers to reach the control point. That gave me lots of hope to reach up to the mid point of the brevet. Then I met Sohan who also was fixing a small issue of his bike. We exchanged few words and he said that I'm just 3 kms away from the control and just have to cross a gentle steep slope. By this time I was immuned with available gears I had and depending on that I just moved forward and gracefully crossed the steep upward slope and after that a free fall to take me to the control point at 12.13 pmwith almost half an hour to spare from the closing time. 

Had my second power nap there for five minutes, and after a brief chat started back at 12.45 pm along with Sanath and Manoj. 

The last 15 kilometers what I struggled so much, realized how tough it was to climb while coming back because I came almost 12 kms without pedaling and just by sliding downward. My next stop was at Periyapatna to have few hot bun directly from the bakery's oven - yummy it was. Next I stopped at Hunsur for banana break and it was becoming tougher slowly to ride as I was becoming more tired by every mile. But by this time I started realizing that this ride has a different script written for me and I'm not the one who can decline it by any means. So my inner soul took over the rest of the journey and only one message from my wife echoing within was ' keep going ' !

Rest is the history. The journey has become a part of the cycling history. And I'll cherish this through-out my life.

I reached the end control point at 7.08 pm with 22 minutes to spare. After a few minutes, Sanath and Manoj also finished to establish a new history to become randonneur father and son together in the same brevet and my hearty congratulations to them and Manoj is a young gun to watch out for in the future cycling events. Venkatesh Duraiswamy also became randonneur in the same evening as he dreamt off. Sohan had finished the ride long time back and came back to meet others at the end control point and he was so happy to see me finishing the brevet. With a decked-up Mysore Palace at the back ground, the evening was looking really colourful and cheerful with lots of positive energy flowing across.

I loved every bit of it and the experience was just invaluable !