A 'likely unlikely' National Monument! - Gilbert Hill

Devils Tower National Monument, California

Devils Postpile National Monument, Wyoming

Devils Postpile and Devils Tower in the USA are two rock structures which are older than time (66 Million Years Old! - No Kidding!). These two structures have been well protected, preserved and popular tourist attractions. And why wouldn't they be? They are significant enough to be showered this respect. 

However, what if I told you that there is a third rock structure which is as old as these two and matches their characteristics and it is in India - in Mumbai - in the heart of Andheri! Here it is. 

Gilbert Hill, Andheri

Gilbert Hill has a sheer vertical face and was formed when molten lava was squeezed out of the Earth's clefts during the Mesozoic Era about 66 million years ago. Although it is a 200 meters high structure, one of the greatest geological wonders of India, is actually quite irritating to locate. You have to make your way through crowded roads, slums, potholes, high rise residential buildings and still not see the structure until you are right in front of it - at one point we started to doubt the GPS! 

Devils Tower has a boundary of 1347 acres. Devils Postpile has a boundary of 798 acres. Gilbert Hill has no boundary. It's lucky to still be there. There has been construction debris dumped at the foothill of Gilbert Hill. Residential buildings have virtually encroached into its non-existent boundary.   

The Gilbert Hill Rock structure in itself is very beautiful; I wish I could ignore the path to reach it and how the surroundings looked like.

An aerial view of Gilbert Hill. 

Devils Tower and Devils Postpile offer a wonderful panoramic view of lush greenery, mountains, lakes and rivers. Gilbert Hill offers a view of the mountains of SG National Park, Versova Beach sea and the slums, high rise buildings, broken roads and multiple dump yards. 

An aerial view of Devils Tower 

Gilbert Hill is definitely not prepared for tourists from far off places. However, Mumbaikars and experimental travelers, try to check this place out. Because if you do not visit this place soon, the hill is eroding and getting smaller every day until one day there are no remains of this monolith rock to claim its existence.


It's a shame - what could have been a National Monument for the world to see is nothing but a Monumental Disaster.  


P.S - Avoid taking your car there. 

Tap Dance to Work Everyday!

There are numerous people who absolutely hate their jobs but just cannot leave them. They have dreadful bosses but wonderful colleagues or wonderful bosses but dreadful colleagues.

The worst; they don’t like the work they are doing; day in – day out. They will not leave either because they are stuck in golden handcuffs (Splendid salary & perks) or because they really don’t know what their passion really is! They may know their strengths but cannot back it up with courage.

There is another unique reason only us Indians can boast about. We are doing the job for which we slogged for years in college and post grad. It wasn’t by choice. It was our “parents’ dream”!

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid"

I love this quote. Some say it was quoted by Albert Einstein. Nevertheless, it's an amazing quote to talk about. To back up this quote, I found an amazing story to tag along as well. Here it goes:

One upon a time the animals had a school. The curriculum consisted of running, climbing, flying and swimming, and all the animals took all the subjects.

The Duck was good in swimming—better than his instructor—and he made passing grades in flying, but he was practically hopeless in running. Because he was low in this subject, he was made to stay after school and drop his swimming class in order to practice running. He kept this up until he was only average in swimming, but the average was passing so nobody worried about that except the duck.

The Eagle was considered a problem pupil and was disciplined severely. He beat all others to the top of the tree in the climbing class, but he always used his own way of getting there.

The Rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but he had a nervous breakdown and had to drop out of school on account of so much make-up work in swimming.

The Squirrel led the climbing class, but his flying teacher made him start his flying from the ground up instead of from the top down, and he developed overexertion at the take-off and began getting C’s in climbing and D’s in running.

None of the animals were happy!

Do what makes you happy. Back your strengths. If you like numbers, take up a job involving that. If you love talking, how about teaching or counselling? Or even sales? Our educational system is traditionally designed to groom us into ‘employees’. I know a guy who barely passed 10^th STD but has his own tours & travels agency because he loves travelling. He is on the verge of starting his own hotel too! It's better to invent a job than finding one.

“LOOK FOR THE JOB THAT YOU WOULD TAKE IF YOU DIDN'T NEED A JOB." Doing otherwise, or what he calls "sleepwalking through life," is "like saving up sex for your old age. It's not a good idea!" 

That last comment makes the audience laugh. But, jokes aside, he says, "You really want to be doing what you love doing." And if you don't connect strongly to your first job or two, "don't give up before you find it." 

- Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway 

Cheers!