What about your future ?

As I dare to type these few words, I suddenly realize that it has been a good one long year since I last attempted to use this space for writing or reflecting on something. So many things going on my mind right now as I begin to type, hard to believe but, I am still confused if posting this matter or not.

Not that I claim to be gifted like superman, who was souvenir underwear over his pants, but then at one point I was at peak of writing crap and was proud of it, strangely even my reader appreciated it with comments or sometime rotten tomatoes which I devouringly ate.

Interesting I found that one of my reader, informing on the contents of my blog to my parents, no not the CIA; these days they are busy with AL-MUJRA or something. LOL, I could not help but burst into laughter while my parents took turns
blast at me, my not so tech savvy dad and mom had literally brought some pages of my blog as a proof of my misdeed.

They had actually highlighted few words and were sarcastically reading it all out, I especially loved my dad’ dialogue “is this why we send you…. and this is what you along with your friends do? By the way that night was celebration in our colony, so the orchestra of my house was silenced by the fireworks outside, but again this experience is something that I would narrate to my grandkids.

Anyway as of this moment my profile to you is, I am a post graduate student, not doing much and awaiting for my joining date of employment i.e. on June 14^th. But sometime the very thought of making a decision of life makes me ponder over many thoughts like many of us,……… is this, what I want to do? Do I want to be recognized as so and so for the rest of my life? Will I fit in? Am I taking the right decision? What if I end up doing nothing? The rosy dream that I saw earlier now seems difficult to achieve.

Uff, too much and too many I must say, moreover not that I disrespect my appa and amma, but then they sometime go way overboard about my future. My mom ever since me getting “Zero” in maths for the first time in 3^rd standard, has given-up on me.  Trivia- in my family almost everybody is an engineer and that kind of nut (they might be today working in some field miles irrelevant to engineering) but anyine failing in maths is like Western toilet without tissue paper.

I mean till date, you would find my mom first in a Queue to buy the weekly edition of employment newspaper or first to grab a copy of Government job application for positions such as 2^nd division clerk, attendant, receptionist and so on (not that I have little respect for these positions, in fact I firmly believe that every job has its own crucial contribution). But in my case, I felt I could contribute in some other field, can you believe upon my mom insistence I have signed almost 30 applications of these job openings and almost ended up applying for one after I finished my degree.

My mom doesn’t give a damn to the job profile or salary, as long as it is a government job, she would in fact not mind if I were a terrorist as long as government awards me PF, GF, quarters, pension and some type of section supervisor while nearing my retirement.

My Appa on the other hand cold stare whenever I idol and watch T.V, it seems he is “ab tera kya hoga kalia”. Job..Future..Job.. Future, this is all the talk of the town.

Then there are some YO-YO relatives and brain-dead neighbors, acting paparazzi’s of my life, wanting to know what I am going to for living.

I mean all these things are crazy, when can one live like a human, at every point we find ourselves justifying to others for being who we are (usually we call this situation as pressure)…….HI I am student.. Hi I am a government employee… Hi I am retired bank manager… Hi I am priest… Hi I study in school…Hi I am married… Kind of strongly feel that the world has got some epidemic of role disorder or something.. The moment someone say’s “hey cool..As of now I am not doing anything”, people look as though something is abnormal and they either distance themselves or might even disown such people.

When last time I was at New Delhi doing internship, I found though the place was full of people, it whole society had a nuclear family pattern (staying only with the near and dear one’s) and the entire society in this case was disintegrated within itself.

 In a simple example: In Delhi there was this trend of people irrespective of their age, sex, status unknown to one another were popping a music headphones onto themselves. It looked as though they were entertaining themselves but actually they were shutting themselves within a wall from one another. This was one of the biggest cultural shocks for me it was not easy to fit in here and sincerely committed to myself that at any given point of time that won’t be me.

It might be because of this perhaps that though I was in the place for a s short duration was able to so many friends and who till date keep the occasional contact.

Anyway back to my living room at this moment, I have 2 week unplanned vacation ahead, hope it would be of sum learning value, I have not told my parents about it.. Since they would me make carry all that food, luggage and portable life support ventilator and such others. While I still have time left for my own, hope at least this trip would be a worthwhile.

Have you heard of Jodikatta ???

When someone mentioned that in a village in India some people did not have bath almost three months due to lack of electricity and water, obviously the news was shocking.  As most of the time the media and the government almost convinces us that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is god and the country is “actually” in the verge of being a “SUPERPOWER” by 2020.

While internationally, India boasts of being the land of villages modeled after the Gandhian principles of Swarajya or little democratic republic, it’s over half a century since a sustainable development has taken place in rural India that has improved the living conditions of its people.

Of several neglected villages in the country, stands this tiny village Jodikatta (Veerapura) in the midst of forest at Mundgod taluk in North Karnataka, housing approximately about 56 to 58 families. Let alone the name of this village appearing in “GOOGLE”, the entire village does not have electricity since September 2010 after a technical breakdown & not most of us knew about it.

The Hubli Electric Supply Company, HESCOM, on the other hand says that the faulty transformer was not repaired by the department as some villagers had outstanding electricity due of Rs. 87000 electricity bill. With an average income ranging from Rs. 2000 to Rs. 3000 per annum these villagers could either support their livelihood or pay the electricity bill.

However it is quite ridiculous action by the HESCOM to penalize the entire village for the payment arrears by the few individual households; the village loomed in darkness with neither a street lights nor water pumps to irrigate the fields.

Interestingly like many other over enthused ministry, the one with the electrical portfolio decided to list   Jodikatta under Bhagya Jyothi scheme in 2008, which guaranteed free electricity to the economically poor to avail public utility service such as street light, low powered water pumps for agriculture irrigation. However for reasons best known to HESCOM, this scheme was withdrawn from this village in 2009. According to Vital Beeru Kolegar “We don’t know why this service is discontinued, though we have repeatedly complained that in the absence of electricity we cannot water our fields, then the crops either fails to yield or gets destroyed.”

Laxman who owns a small tea stall says “there are only two wells to cater to water requirements of the entire village and a single pond to bathe approximately 2000 cattle’s in the village.”

Meanwhile in spite of repeated plea both from the villagers and the civil society in the area, the HESCOM turned deaf ears to the request of sending a maintenance team to rectify the problem in the transformer. Paresh Kumar, a traveler who stayed in this country side says “for months the people said that they did not have bath, can you believe that? I could daily see some 20 odd small school children aged between 10 to 12 pitiably walking a distance of 500 meters to fetch water” he adds “In the absence of electricity almost every day these kids strained their eyes to study for examination under fire lamps.”

The village lacks basic utility services such as public transport, newspaper & media, water taps and the nearest healthcare facility that is approximately 10 kilometers away. While chatting with the villagers it was realized that they lacked general awareness and were either misinformed, clueless of several schemes available to their relief.

Jaanu Beeru Yedige a farmer in Veerapur village says “the government does not seem to pay much heed to any of our owes, earlier we had complained of the elephant herds destroying our crops, but since the ownership title of the land is not transferred by the government in our name, the forest department won’t give us any compensation, though we have been cultivating in this land since 1968” he adds saying “we can’t even borrow credit against these lands to improve produce or to store them, though we have been cultivating the same since 1968”

The office of the section forest range officer at Kathur, Pale maintains that they are helpless to reimburse the losses to the grieved farmers as the government still holds the actual property.

For some of us it may be difficult just to imagine carrying our lives without electricity even for couple of hours let alone three months. But for the invisible village like Jodikatta this is their story of daily survival. A district official was confronted with the facts related to this village for which he callously replied saying “this is a state of affair in very village, why do you want to highlight this particular issue” to make it more political he added “what is your motive?”

Off late in the early December due to the intervention by some civil society organization that appealed the government and HESCOM to stop acting insensitively to people living in villages like Jodikatta and to provide them with immediate relief, the transformer was rectified on December 5^th 2010.

While problems of this small village like Jodikatta, maybe be heard time and again by some of us. These villages are those weakest links of the country that have to be strengthened in order to at least call ourselves a stable nation if be a superpower.

It is also not surprising but sad to see that while the functioning of the government is characterized by a snail phase even the news media has lost its place as the 4^th estate or the watch dog of the society.

The Disturbing Silence….

Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh is exactly 2004.89 kilometers from one its remote counterpart city in the south called Mangalore; however September 30, 2010 which some media claim to be a red letter day in the history of the country, this distance perhaps did not matter. The entire city of Mangalore, like the rest of the nation had embraced itself to face the repercussions of a judgment of the honorable lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court over Ayodhya or the Babri masjid dispute.

The moment, Mangalore got up on the early sunlight of 6.45 AM on September 30^th 2010, the change in its lifestyle was evident. One glance from the top of my flat was sufficient to know the true meaning of section 144, children’s remained absent from the bus stop on the streets corner, the fish vendors who usually play DJ with that unpleasant horn honking on their cycle were missing, people took the shortest route to their respective destinations and out, the commuters on the usually busy street had disappeared.

It was interesting to note, how on this particular day, the news channels had clouded the Ayodhya Story on air from rest of the incidents happening in the country. No matter how many times one flipped the channels; the electronic media like the television were flooded with one of their highest ever sponsored programs for their so called news stories, opinion poll, panel discussion and speculative reports on Ayodhya verdict.

Nothing to do, at about 10 o clock in the morning, I decided to break my confinement at home and venture out to the city with my camera to feel its pulse. Approximately 2 kilometer away from my home locality Pandeshwar, there is this busy street junction called Hampankatta, something like what the Newyork times is for the Americans. The scene here was pretty creepy, with almost 75 percent of the regular traffic was off the road, only a single traffic police manned his post. Moreover the vehicles took the liberties of moving on their own since the inflow and outflow of traffic were at its minimal. The shopping and eateries remained either fully closed or partially open for maintainers related work, only few commuters walked cautiously keeping an eye over others shoulder.

As I ventures to the outskirts of the city the scenario was still horrifying, it more looked like a military installation or a defense zone, where apart from the uniformed patrol men only couple of civilians were visible. The movies houses were closed, the inmates of schools and colleges were enjoying holidays; it was like the entire population had evaporated leaving behind only a few.

The entire city was clamped in some kind of confusion as the day progressed, and as it came close to the verdict moment so did the population in the streets decreased, people further grew impatient and further glued to their television, perhaps if television depended on common computer like server, then I bet it would have definitely crashed owing to the number of visitors.

Later in the day after the verdict was passed, I was quite surprised to know one particular ground reality out of so many others, It seems the Lucknow city functioned as usual in its full glory with neither a Bundh or a holiday declared by the state while the rest of the country held its breath due to the verdict. As an ardent Mangalorean I was quite uneasy with this disturbing silence.

Being “Senior citizens” in college!!!.

History repeats itself once again they say!!! Today a little more, as I regrouped with my MCMS classmates, whomI have been away since the beginning of my internship. I ran a full gallop to the 2^nd floor, with the fear of being ousted for punctuality on the first day of reopening. However the gave Head of the Department was kind enough to accommodate me in the class with a disciplinary stare.

They had just finished with the morning prayers, and as an atheist I realized that “didn’t miss much!!!”

Since it is our final year, we perhaps thought that college would be lenient to the mischiefs done by its “Senior citizens” atleast this year. However the HOD again appeared in front of the class, but this time with a mischievous smile, that everybody was familiar with.

And for the next 30 minutes, HOD gloriously started defining our “KARMA” for third and fourth semester i.e. compliance with rules and regulation, assignment, dissertation, projects, surprise tests, activities, seminar’s, involvement, participation etc. Just by definition listening to weight of the work load almost broke our back and we soon realized that the words like “leniency” and “privilege” was just a mirage.

Had a chance to come across some hundred odd friends whom I missed so much for the past two months. But most of

all we missed ours seniors and other batches who stayed next door sharing the same floor. It’s been hard to believe that they were no more; not to be misunderstood; I mean they are employed by some of the top shot companies and are professionals now!!!

Thinking about the good lot seniors cum friends that we had, I really went down a nostalgic memory lane of July 06, 2009, when I was freshly kicked-out by my company after one year’s stint due to recession and had decided to take mass communication last year.

Now as I recollect those bygone friends and memories, it’s a realization that in a year’s time even the current batch

of 2^nd year MCMS will be gone, maybe in a new profession, with new colleagues and friends, some near or some maybe even in different part of the world. But the story of these 12 idiots of MCMS students will stay alive afresh in everybody’s mind.

Make no mistake gentlemen……..

Prologue

You may not be interested in the game of football or any other sport for that matter. However make no mistake ladies and gentleman, but today the world will stand still as the clock strikes 12.00am IST to witness the greatest battle befitting to be witness by “GODS”.

One the one side I give U – Team “Spain”

Which with its incredible “possession football” technique sweeps the victory down to the net, while its opposition remain dazed as their supporters switch sides to Spain as a mark of respect for the quality of game played.The team seemed to grow with a well knit brotherhood of gentlemen who fight together till the end. In the entire series the Spaniards remained focused on their gaming techniques and almost never lost their cool even with the aggressive goliath like Paraguay that was under the supervision of Maradona.  

On the other hand I give U – Team “Germany”

Who, with their quick pace and a mechanically orchestrate team effort are known to be the best counter-attack team in the world. Time and again the German team gave the worlds best speculators a run for their money by timing goals when mere mortals least expected it. The English team by no doubt had the “gut” of a worthy competitor, but they were mowed down like a “grass” by the German Blitzkrieg that scored 4 goals against the English team that was forced to stick to a 0 in the quarter finals. 

If you have been following the World cup 2010 matches closely like some, you will realize that this was no ordinary event. The two have proved that “that yesterday is past and they have moved on, it is only the present that matters”  

Confession 

I am never regular at sport-reporting and I least follow it, moreover due to my internship pressures, I thought of taking a break from blogging till July 15^th.  However a great amount of anticipation was in my mind since I followed almost every match of these teams.  This article of mine may be a pure exaggeration as some would rightly point out, but for the undying “Adrenaline rush” of a football fan in me this will be nothing more than the fight of the “super-humans”.  

Now for the “Conclusion”   

Both the teams have the dream of winning this world cup, for Spaniards this is the 7^th time hovering close to the semi finals in past 60 years, while for Germany this is their 4^th chance to hold the “World Cup” high in the air.  

So again I repeat Ladies and gentleman………….Make no mistake for the team that “Wins” today’s match will be remembered for the “History” and the one that “Looses” will walk with their heads held “High”

Epilogue 

World stands will still stand still at 12.00am IST between the finish of 7^th night and beginning of the 8^th day on of July 2010. As the clock strikes to commence the battle befitting to be witnessed by the “GODS”.

Knowing the pulse of Delhi……

It’s almost 5 days in Delhi, slowly but gradually understanding the pulse ofthe city, it is quite easy to interact with people all over here. All you need to do is “Walk the walk and talk the talk” and then everything will fall in place all by itself. People in Delhi speak on diverse subject like politics; economics, transport and very often conversation begins at one a particular subject and ends in a different issue, but people are very warm and friendly.

No one till date has tagged me “Madrasi” but they often refer me as BABU and they call one another BHAYYIA. I don’t on what context they refer me to as BABU in Kannada sometime affectionately small kids are called as a babu. I hope they are not calling me a kid or a BACHHA.

I guess being a regular commuter of Delhi Transport Corporation or DTC, the daily commuting has acquired me couple of friends more friends whom I don’t know by name but they just come in and dash their conversation and become an acquaintance.

The moment I handed over my statistic paper this semester, thought that it would be my last tribute from me to the world of numbers for sometime. But sometime speaking things too early could turn dangerous, every day I need to remember nearly five to six sets of numbers to travel to and fro from my residence to the office like 534, 717,716,715,534A and some other as a back up.

Wish I had just paid more concentration on my Hindi reading and writing skill as much as I learnt to speak Hindi. Almost every bus that ply have their address board typed in Hindi alphabets, by the time I finish reading the entire word or sometime even half way through and signal the driver to stop, the bus would either have passed already or that would be a wrong bus.  So literally till someone stands by my side as a co-passenger in the bus stop and helps me to identify the bus its almost impossible for me to stop all alone.

The internship is going on fine had a very warm reception from the boss and colleagues. Few hours in the office also helped me to get acquainted with one of the co-intern who almost joined on the same date just like me.

Won’t be able to type much during these days, as I have to constantly work on my internship matters here in the office.

Planning to take a break this weekend either will end up in India gate,

Parliament, Chandni chowk night even take a metro for a ride, that would be a first timer…and then the following weekends may even extend by travel plans on long weekend journeys like Amrithsr, Taj Mahal and other off beat destinations. Moreover I hope to get more pictures on these place so that memories of this visit to Delhi remains concrete.

Accidental Friendship in Delhi !!!

It was a late evening with drizzly shower that welcomed me to Delhi as I was in a final juncture of striking a deal with a PG owner. To satisfy my hunger one of the road side Dhaba’s actually served some awesome tandoor roti for two rupees each with Dal mutter. It was a filling grump at the given price, neither did they ask me to stop eating nor did I shy away from hexagonal helping before calling it a day.

Early morning today I got ready for my office quite early at 6.45AM. As usual of a new employee, I thought of creating a best impression over my employers by reaching office early. So got up at 6.45 am put up my best clothes till finally reaching the downstairs where this girl with confused expression was waiting by the door of my neighbors flat.

I was almost through the gate when thought of giving a courtesy call to my boss ran over my mind. Over the phone I was informed that the company remains closed on Saturday, so I was expected to report to duty only on Monday. The boss ended the brief conversation by lightly ordering me saying “it’s a two day off Harsha go and discover Delhi”. Obviously it was not an assignment but then I was not prepared to take a day off therefore I came back to my room. I always believe in the dictum that goes “Everything happens for ones good”, however I couldn’t figure out what good was store in for me.

On my way back I again saw the glimpse of that same girl br the door who was still waiting for someone outside the door, she constantly pressed the bell time as though  believing some miracle would happen. I was back at my room and planning on my operation “exploring Delhi”.

As I reached downstairs this girl was still on the same spot as before, dressed in a white color salwar with some sort of hope in eyes and yet desperate. As I walked across she asked me if I knew where the residents were. I said that that I was new resident as well and didn’t know anything, with a kind of a desperate but irritated smile she started pouring down her miseries, saying that she was a student of some college abroad and she had come to meet her high school best friend after a long time and she had traveled quite far and was upset by her friends absence.

By the time she finished I was almost immune to my own personal frustration and listened to her patiently standing there as I knew that knowing more problems could not make any difference in the existing one’s. After sometime I guess she felt like she is blurting out too much information to a stranger so she apologized, as usual caught in a confused state I was thinking how to continue. So I smiled and took an excuse from her saying that I was really sorry for not being able to help her with the trouble. She smiled and said thanks anyway for listening, then I walked away.

In Delhi there are two of reacging a spot one is short cut, the other is the obvious – if you plan to take a short cut, then get ready to remember lot of names and numbers. If it’s a long cut then it’s a really a long way with only couple of places to remember e.g.: Short cut direction to my place Vasanth Kunj to a Mehroli bus stop would be: Take straight turn right at andherimode – then go by nali ka kinara- then left of doodhwaligali – from there peepal se right turn – then again 2^nd red light se left – where you will find mehroli market – then finally Mehroli bus stop in front of you. But same thing on a long cut would be 5 kilometer straight and then first left by the signal. So you get the point isn’t it whether you would like to invest your brains or your muscles, the option is upto you.

Most of the people easily respond to a help request. I was quite surprised about the contradiction that people usually opinioned about Delhi that people here loose their cool too fast.

Anyways I managed to catch a bus and proceeded to Greater Kailash in search of internship location so that I oculd reach on time for the joining date. Fortunately or unfortunately the conductor directed me to Greater kailash 1 instead of 2. This I realized almost after going 3 kilometers in a wrong direction.

As I turned back almost half dead a Skoda fabia blocked my way in a screeching james bond fashion and suddenly this girl pops her head out. I felt like screaming on top of my voice like a girl when I looked at that face with unmistakably familiarity; it was the same girl who had come down to PG to meet her friend. Two things were running on my mind about this girl either she was a stalker or I was walking in front of her car all the way for 14 kilometre.

Though pretty nervous I gave this tough look of challenge with a polite smile to which she calmly responded saying “hey what are you doing?”. I had pretty much same stuff to ask her but then I told her my purpose and then asked her to justify her presence. She pointed out a huger house behind against which I was standing in the front with palacial kind of furnished wood type exterior and said “See that is my house”. I thought to myself “my doubts were right she is a rich crazy woman stalking people with her money”.

Before I could again say anything she said “chalo lets go to that place for coffee”. I was still out of cold for the shock she gave me but at the same time pretty tired myself. On my own I would never enter a coffee shop so thought of going ahead with a blank mind.

We went for a coffee and I further explained my story of internship and how she had freaked me out. The tread mill called Greater Kailash had almost made my legs numb, I was not able to sit at the same position even at the coffee shop.

Seems this girl is pursuing her Masters of commerce or something similar abroad and then we chatted some more stuff. She expressed her interest in bollywood movies and her favorite picks from Chinese, Iranian and Italian movies

After this she was kind enough to drive me all the way to my internship location, from there this girls took me around a guided tour to some popular hang out destinations like malls and multiplexes in the city. In any case it was a wonderful experience for me to travel the streets of Delhi by car instead of regular DTC.

It was almost 6 we were nearing our PG, meanwhile the girl had already called some more of her friends who joined us at the same Dhaba were I had the dinner the previous night. It was fun to eat by the road in such a large company of people whom you hardly know by name and yet feel lively. …. It was almost late, some of us exchanged our number promised to keep in touch and then we called it a day……

As for me I still cherish this sweet memory of having some accidental acquaintances at Delhi. Perhaps this restores my faith in the dictum “Everything happens for good”

One thing about Delhi………

As I landed this day at the Delhi airport there was this mixed sense of feeling going on my mind of happiness, excitement, loneliness was creeping in my mind. Stepping out of the Delhi airport terminal I saw some beautiful emotional reception of tears and joy of home comming by a family for their dear one’s. At this junture for the first time I had a feeling of missing home.But I guess this is common when certain things affect us and our life, then it is upon us to avoid such deterrance and move on.

The interesting question that popped up in my mind standing there was “NOW WHAT TO DO”Call it the story of “TWO STATES” or “TALE OF THREE CITIES” for the past 18 hours I have had my breakfast in Karnataka, lunch at Goa and then the dinner at Delhi…..

Interestingly or stupidly somehow I assumed that it was possible to tackle hush-bush of Delhi with two books – “LEARN HINDI IN THIRTY DAYS” and “THE DELHI MAP”. When I told this to one my three point of contact at Delhi over the phone today she could not excuse herself from bursting into laughter on my face at the choice of my survival kit in Delhi.

Infact she was right, a few hours after my arrival, venturing out to the city in the late evening all alone I realized that there was a huge contrast in the small 5 lettered name of this place “DELHI” and its huge structure.

A rough look at the spectacles at Delhi would make one assume this city is a huge museum of architectural wonders, some new and others reminding telling stories of the distant memory lane of our country. Every since my childhood I had always heard or seen this place on my 21inch television and at occasion must have also underestimated it size, but it is only now that I witness its huge and mammoth size that would humble even the mightiest ego.

The roads are broad and straight, every alternative building is like a huge mall, it is interesting to note that while the old heritage buildings magnify their style on the horizontal style of architecture i.e. the building are wide in its breadth or the carpet area is broader corresponding to its height. The modern buildings on the other hand assert their superiority on the basis of vertical height of their structure. This notion can be perceived in two ways either it is the influence of English and American model or the economic dynamics owing to the price of real estate.    

Unlike other metropolitan cities which are glamorous in articulating their developments and wonders. This city has always stayed ahead in progress letting its work speak for itself maintaining its gentlemanly spirit of silence.

If Mumbai is land of dreams, then Delhi is the land for the ambitious

It is my first visit to this city and I already feel absorbed by its virtue of its hospitality. Will be here for another two and a half months and may have more to tell about

This is the story of one city… living its everyday life….. This is the story of Delhi……. THE RAJDHANI !!!

All iz well that ends well !!!

It took me a one whole day to recover from the kind of isolation that I had imposed upon myself to prepare for the Communication research paper which had mathematics and statistics in its menu.  My room had literally turned into an isolated fortress in which I was the only human specie. I had neither called my mom nor replied to the messages of my friends.

My condition was exactly like Chandler in the box when Joey punished him or somewhat similar to that of Sanjay Dutt in the movie Zinda. My roommates probably understood my complication with the subject, so they sacrificed their Sunday movie on their Laptop, stopped playing cards nor did they invite any of their friends to the room for weekend booze. They were on their own like a dead body sleeping sometimes going out of the room.

Straining my eyes, working of stats problem, repeating the formulas again and again, trying to work on my pictographic memory, using loads of rough work sheets just to remember one thing at a time, sleep deprivation, lack of personal hygiene, concoction of bread, jam, rice, chapattis, pickle, yogurt, water, curds burger, tooth paste, dosa, tea ….wait did I just say toothpaste!!! Yeah maybe even that also, thankfully the room came with an attached wash room.

Moreover on one hand there was this hot summer and on the other the electricity departments were playing OONGLICRICKET in their office. The power was just not stable it was going on and off – on and off.

No matter how much ever Shikhari Shambhu I try to be during other time, when it came to facing statistic examination I had reduced to a mere human of flesh and bone. Isolated and all alone I must have probably looked like a crazy scientist trying to clone human from dolphin saliva.

The days passed just like a zap and now it was time to write history, at the examination I must have probably looked like a magician with 2 calculator , 2 pencil, one sharpener, a eraser one for ink and one for pencil, small and large measuring scale and on top of that a bangle to draw pie circle. Oh yeah the bangle was stolen from the gift pack of my room mate who probably brought for his girlfriend and believe me it was more difficult to steal things than buy one.

If I were a camera sensor looking at al the face of all the examinees I would probably flash “FACE NOT DETECTED” message on the display screen. Anyway I was pretty confidant to score a decent grade with the kind of effort I had put in to learn the problem.

You might understand the kind of intensity and anticipation that the student have before they receive their question paper, so I was going through all that. Every minute that acute sense of “AB TERA KYA HOGA KALIA” kind of feeling was going through my mind.

Suddenly the bell goes on, the invigilator swirls like that SHAKTI-MAN/WOMAN distributing question papers at quick  succession to every candidate. I received my paper more confidently than usual but the first look at it turned me pale – Only one sum and rest all were theory. I flipped the other side there were no sum at all!!! I wondered if the attachment paper was missing in my set of dossier, so I looked around only to find mirror like reaction from others faces.

Guys if you recollect this movie MERI JUNG of Anil Kapoor, there is a scene in the opening when his father Kirish karnad is hanged and Nutan receives the news with that expression over her a face where she neither she laughs nor she cries…..Yeah egjactly the same one, I was Nutan for that moment not knowing how to respond, I cannot recollect what I was seeing but I am pretty much sure there was this KUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNN sound going on my ear, similar to that of All India Radio when there is no transmission.

Anyways I gathered my bits and pieces once again found some familiar question and then started writing the exam like Mr. Bean reincarnated. Could not believe but as my own AS I said to myself “Gosh I hope there were few from statistics” I dunno wheather I had to be happy or sad. Obviously this was a semester “TEST” in its truest sense. After the exams I could witness some sights and sounds post examination from all quarters, loitered for some time before leaving to PG.

The sacrifice of roommates was in drains and I had no commonsensical explanation and a slight signal of attitude on my part would definitely invite some broken bones. So going by the principles of MIRINDA – Zor ka jatka thing I decided to host them for a dinner and then break the news.

At the dinner they were drunk and I knew the time was right to telltale. I don’t know wheather it was the alcohol or….. they really pretended as though they understood my situation and said it was alright.  After all this it was early morning 1.30 AM when we reached the PG.

Days of our lives !!!

The notion of social norm or mannerism sometime forces upon us certain actions that we perform robotically without thinking or reasoning. I mean, even the dog knows the reason for wagging its tail, so as social animals shouldn’t we at least try to find logic in the way we do things?

It is a fact that we human beings are the most comical characters living ever since the origin of this planet. While reflecting over these unquestioned actions which I myself executed so beautifully like an army drill, the thought made me wonder why I did such things to myself.

Walking down the steps of the concrete hallway of my old high school, I along with my old buddies recollected several nostalgic memories that made us laugh out for drilling ourselves into some embarrassing moments. Since even I was the part of that brat group even I had many scenes which makes me embarrassed at the very thought of it.

Buying my First Suit

It was during my 10^th standard exam that the entire batch of high school friends decided to have black suit as the uniform dress code for School day celebration. It took a great deal of time, patience & effort to convince parents to buy a brand suit for school day celebration.

Obviously the idea of a suit came from probably by a Bollywood or a Hollywood movie and that blanketed our commonsense of Mangalore summer.

On the D-DAY every one of us literally broke into sweat as the day progressed because of the heat. The program was only through halfway but we had already stripped ourselves from that over coat & looked like hotel bell-boys.

Our parents who were the special invitees for the occasion gave an assassins look for going against their advice and then not wearing the suit. It was more than what we could ask for, so we had to drape ourselves with that carpet thick stuff again. To worsen things my friend’s mother went onstage to narrate the incident & made us a laughter stock. No soon the program came to an end we started swearing and cursing one another for the “GREAT” suit idea.

Mobile showoff !!!

We were more influenced to follow the footsteps of Bill Gates who made his first million dollars unconventionally therefore we never focused on our studies during our 10^th board exam. However our parents were a little pessimist of our Gates foundation so we were forced to college.

To compensate for shattering dreams, my parents decided to gift me with a brand new cell phone. Since I was among the very few students who owned a cell phone, we formed a small group of mobile showoffs. Those cell phones were like our identity and we flashed it almost everywhere as it brought us reputation or so we thought. Even in public transport we played the polytone sound or talk at a very high pitch to show our presence.

On certain occasion even today when I see some student or any other showing off mobile phone with its shrill volume. Though it may look crazy I just can’t stop smiling, occasionally I also break into a laugh thinking of my past.

Table manners please…..

Dinning with the teachers’ family was the treat for a student for securing good marks in the concerned subject; however this day it was something else. While battling out food with fork and knife instead my own hand, the chicken from my plate somehow jumped into the only TOORDAL serving container meant for my teacher’s vegetarian mother.

Now let’s see, a boy manages to get this rare honor faring through his studies, finally a Chicken Embargo’s him from his teacher’s home. Great!!! No wonder this teacher did not invite me for the wedding of his children.

At the end of the day !!!

It was a casual reunion of friends who grew up together since their Kindergarten & walked all the way up to the Pre-university College, till our endeavors took us apart. It was a half day gathering but all of us were able to recollect thousands of memory that made us laugh and cry all through our childhood.

Out of several topics we spoke, I decided to mention about these embarrassing moments because till this day these memories had kept me haunting and kept me running away from it.

So finally after writing this piece my mind is a little more relaxed and at peace ….

Andaman Trip Story (Day1)

Hey guys sorry for not updating my blog for about a week as I was out of touch from all the wonders of late 20the century. It so happened that on February 14 2009 I happened to take a week-long vacation to Andaman Nicobar Island though this trip came to me as a sudden surprise, as my mother didn’t think it was important to let me know that I am being deported to “Kaala-Paani” it till 12^th of February 2009.

 

 

You see, it is almost a year since the global market collapsed, seems “Uncle Sam” has a spoilt broth from his too many cooks and the broth is seemingly stinking throughout the world and even my former company just like every other has resorted to job cuts in-order to reduce the management expenditure. So following the traditional formula the first in the hit-list of job cuts were the species called “Trainees” and since I had just completed my fourth month on pay-roll, I came on the company’s radar and was among the first ones to get pink slip and thus I had to say “Dasvaidaniya” to them.

 

And now since most of the companies are not having no current openings I thought of pursuing my masters degree meanwhile, so currently I am back to square-one and hence I  do not have any say over my own life, forget life I don’t even get to select even my own breakfast, but nevertheless I knew my routine I was half heartedly getting ready to leave to the railway station still glued on to T.V, my dad as-usual came late at 12.15pm when we were actually supposed to report to the Mangalore railway station at 12.00 pm after completing his office work for the next one week, by then my mother Usha kumari had finished packing all my stuffs for me in my bag and myself as usual like a lazy buggers I was watching T.V,  my mother and my sister Namratha had canceled their trip to Andaman as my sisters exam had been rescheduled on the same week. But as soon as my mother saw my dad arriving late she started mumbling her lecture on being punctual, on hearing that broadcast I got up from my “Simhasana” and dutifully got ready within 5 minutes. Along with my dad and mother we were sayonara to railway station.

 

 

 

 

By the time I reached there almost all the LTC party was already there, however I saw only around 7 out of 19 people in the same compartment, rest of them seemed to have scattered to other bogies because of waiting list or RAC (Reservation against cancellation) issues, the train was supposed to leave to Chennai, about one and half day of journey from Chennai we had either to take a flight or ship to Andaman Nicobar island, however ship would take nearly 3 days to reach, whereas flight would take only 2 hours to travel 1002 Kms, In order to reach earlier to our destination decided our LTC group had decided to take a flight. There is another connection of transport to Andaman that is via Kolkatta again flight or ship.

 

 As soon as I entered the train the first person I spotted was my uncle Mr. Chandrasekhar, a man in his early fifty’s who works in Konaje telephone exchange , he was busy conditioning his new Sony camera as he gave a welcoming smile, a quick eye scan in the compartment revealed that other people included my grandmother Suhasini who was former school teacher, my granny as usual was busy in distributing “Rice Bomb” you can also call it (rice dumpling)or in tulu it is called as “PUNDI” there is no contemporary word for that in English, my aunt Shakuntala with whom my mother had already begun a conversation also shared the same compartment with us, and my mother had already struck a conversation with her. Meanwhile my dad had found his political party friend in the railway station so they were interacting with each other whereas I was still struggling with getting my bag to the 2 tier AC compartment. Somehow after a lengthy lengthy struggle I was finally able to get my baggage. No sooner I sat on some seat even I was also offered “Rice bomb” by my mom. But then I used one of my oldest tricks in the book which I used from 1^st to 10^th standard and said that I had stomach upset, and thus avoided being victim of the “Rice bomb”.

 

The train to Chennai was supposed to leave at 13.15 pm and still there was 35 minutes left I desperately searched for some one in the LTC group or at-least in the compartment to belong to my age group but I neither had “Luckbychance” either that I was “Oye lucky” that I get things on my terms as expected. Anyways I had to waste my time which so I started loitering around the station platform and then got hold of some Stardust, Week , India today and other magazines for the journey. Its not that I was really bothered to read all those gyaan in magazines but it is just that I had a small motto in my life “Whenever you feel stupid read a book” and it worked. Several times in my life I have encountered scenario’s where I had nothing to do or no place to escape and at such point I always feel that it is always better to do something than nothing. And this situation is very common in train because of its long duration in travel example when the co-passenger is eating food we can neither resist the munching sound nor we can stare at their faces while they eat or sometime we quite often feel embarrassed to eat food in front of all, or sometime people even get personal in railway compartment. So in-order to avoid all such embarrassing situation I always feel its better to look like a busy man reading a book than a idiot counting the trees outside the window. Yes people do have their own method of tackling their own way out of loneliness they even engage conversation with strangers but being an introvert myself “Book formula” works for me.

 

 

 

Finally after lot of looking here and there munching some biscuits and wafers from the vendors I finally boarded the train at 13.15pm when I heard the big-honk from the engine room of the train. My mom and some others got down from the train and waved bye to me and my dad and at that point I remembered my sister and called my home but then since she had not reached home the call did not get any response.

 

 

 Slowly as the time passed by everybody got settled in the seat my dad as usual stood near the door way appreciating the nature or whatever, I have traveled through kerala couple of time during my NCC camps so those so called sceneries did not bring any new pleasantries to my eyes, that’s why I sat in my seat waiting for someone to talk conversation with me, but after sometime I realized that everybody had settled themselves with the company of one another and other than my family members everybody else was a stranger to me.

 

 

We traveled about half an hour when somewhere down the end of our bogie I saw a first glimpse of a familiar face it was Padmanabh uncle, as I used to call him ever since I was small, I knew him ever since I started studying in UKG, his son and I used to study in the same class as I and that’s how I got acquainted with him. In-spite of seeing him after so many years he still looked as fit and fine as I saw him 14 years back, and as he came close to our compartment he recognized me and we exchanged formal pleasantries. When I spoke with Padmanabh uncle, I also came to know that my old friend Prem Arun is doing quite well in his life, after completing his diploma, Prem Arun was now working for one of the most reputed companies in India LARSEN &TUBRO. I was quite happy to hear the well being of my old buddy. Actually till I completed my second standard after school hours I used go to my mothers office everyday so it was there I came to know Prem arun and his brother quite well. As the time passed by many other people joined in our compartment for conversation who at that point were all strangers to me, as I told earlier I hardly knew anyone from my mother’s office. Anyway as the time ticked by it was 18.00pm, when we reached Calicut, now because of my NCC camping trips I knew that this place was famous for two things Jersey milk and Halwa. As I was in no mood to eat sweets I at-least drank a sip of hot tea, which as expected was extremely well prepared.

 

 

By the time the train left from the station it was somewhat 18.10pm and when I returned, I saw the entire LTC party buzzing with noise in our bogie, as I am pretty amateur in socializing when compared to my mother and sister I did not disturb them instead I started taking pictures from the Nikon Digicam which I borrowed it from my friend, it was a excellent camera which has preset photography manual which makes it absolutely easy to operate, that is why I brought it instead of my own camera. I got some nice pictures during the travel but after sometime it started becoming dark and I could not longer take anymore pictures. It was then I also noted that even my mobile had started indicating roaming signal.

 

 

 

And I just felt as I knew what to do in such conditions I picked up my bag-pack entered my bunk bed next to the door and started reading Stardust, but I was never reading I was just flicking pages but I remember I was reading something about J.Goody and her cancer stuff when I fell asleep, then the next thing I remember was my dad waking me up asking me to have my dinner. I just went to the wash room got myself tidy ate my breakfast….. Oh sorry lunch …..Oh really sorry dinner (I think I am really sleepy) and fell asleep…………………… (To be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

Andaman Trip Story (Day2)

 

I cant recollect clearly but I guess it was something like early morning of 2.30am on 15/02/2009 when some sort of rattling sound woke me up, and I just put my head out of my bunk bed in the train like a tortoise and realized that the train was passing through a bridge something like our Nethravathi of Mangalore.I just looked around the bogie which was almost dark and almost all the people were sleeping with snoring orchestra in the AC compartment.

 

Now I have a problem, if once I am disturbed from my sleep either I should eat something or watch T.V to fall back asleep, but since Mr. Laalu has not made neither of the provisions in this years “Interim rail budget for 2009”, I thought at-least I would stand near the bogie door and appreciate the night queen, so I just kept the stardust magazine aside in which Kangana Ranaut was still staring at me in the middle of the night and got down from my bunker and was on the way to stand near the bogie door when suddenly the door made a screeching noise which woke up my dad, he enquired “on what I was up to” and I don’t know when Gandhi came over me and I replied “I just wanted to stand near the doorway”(I knew I should have said that, I mean I could have told something else, I could have told that I was going to washroom or to play ice-hockey, I mean my dad looked so drowsy that he would have even believed me if I said I was going big-bazaar) but alas the cat was out of the bag, now my dad was wide-awake and was sternly told to go back to my bunker and not to do such daring stuffs on a running train.  

This statutory waning was loud enough to turn the compartment lights on and to wake up almost everyone in the compartment, my aunt, granny, uncle, Satish and two other nuns who were sharing the same compartment with the LTC party and now were staring at me. Suddenly I felt that everybody was looking at me as though I was the one who threw shoes on George W Bush.

 

 

Pretty embarrassed for disturbing others sleep, I didn’t have the guts to put forth my point across to my dad so like a obedient soldier I went back to my bunker, and started reading the Star dust magazine where Asin was smiling at me for my stupid decision . Then I can’t remember whether it was dream or I really fell asleep. But when I was totally back with my 5 senses, my watch showed 5.30am in the morning, some people were having their breakfast and others were getting ready to disembark from train. I sincerely didn’t feel like getting down my bunk and facing the crowd after how I disturbed those sleeping lions, but I didn’t have any escape either, I mean I had to enjoy the vacation with these guys I could just not hide my face like ostrich nor I could keep snorkeling in Andaman waters for about an entire week, I mean it’s all the matter of talent and stamina and I didn’t have any.Anyways I mustered up all my courage and somehow managed to step outside my bunker not knowing how to face the angry crowd I somehow managed to get a place to sit next to my dad, quickly I started search for my “Suprabatha Kit” (my tooth brush, tooth paste, shaving kit, soap etc). As I had not listened to my mothers “what is kept where instruction”, I had to struggle for quite sometime and finally I found it in North West corner of my bag and meanwhile I also realized that almost everyone had forgotten about the previous nights incident and everyone was talking merrily to one another even with me.

 

 

Very soon I went to the wash room completed my early morning “Suprabatha” and came back to the compartment to have my breakfast. As I was slowly munching my breakfast with a sip of a masala tea, a lady came in to our compartment and she announced “does anyone have a plain A4 size paper”, and some of them in the compartment started searching for a paper in their hand bags or travel bags or wallets, even my granny got engrossed to search for a paper matching the description, it was not until after say about 2 minutes that my granny popped a million dollar question “do u need the paper urgently to write something” and then came the billion dollar reply in a casual tone “no ma I just need the paper to dispose the remaining food”. The entire compartment stopped and stared at the lady leaving whatsoever their activity for about 4 seconds and suddenly the two nuns who were sitting silently till then burst in laughter, and this laughter was followed by a loud roar of laughter by the lady herself when she realized what was going on in the compartment, entire cabin laughed at the entire scene and it lasted for something about 5 minutes and as for me I was choking my food plus laugh till I was finally rescued by my granny who gave me a cup of water. And finally the lady with a million dollar question was none otherthan the ever photogenic Bharthi aunty.

 

 

After about 30 minutes or so we finally reached the Chennai central railway station where we picked up by our Chennai guide Charan who took us to some hotel by bus for a days stay as the flight to Andaman was on 16/02/2008 at 10.30am, kingfisher airways. As it was Sunday and we had an entire day at our disposal 15/02/2009, the entire LTC group decided to visit the city of Chennai for one day, so everybody got ready around 08.00am for breakfast, it was quite nice to see how choosy people are about their menu some had idly, vada, masala dosa, upma along with tea, coffee or a malt to wash down. Meanwhile our guide Mr. Charan awarded us our red colour apna travels tourist cap; as though it was a convocation ceremony, this cap both served for a complimentary purpose from our tourist operator as well as to identify us when we are lost in crowd.

 

 

 

 At around 08.45am the LTC group (from now on called as “Red Bandits”) took off to sight seeing in Chennai, first stop of the “Red Bandits” was to a mini (Dry)amusement park known as golden chariot, (like we have manasa in Mangalore). It also has a beach in its own premises (something like summer sand of ullal). The entry fee for adults is 125/-, whereas for young kids it charged 75/- per head, photography 5/-. As I said earlier there is also a beach attached to the amusement park but being from coastal region this did not capture my interest, instead there were many fun rides in the amusement park section like “Dragon Boat”, “Cow Boy’s bull”, Water splash car, a very tall man who will charge 20 rupees for a picture with him and many other fun rides.

However mostly the park looks like shooting set: where hero and heroine can sing songs under some banyan tree without being disturbed by Shree ram sene, hero and villain can have ultimate climax fight scene without any intervention of police, son goes to the temple to pray for his mothers health or where kumolika makes her next evil plot and where police can arrive finally at the end of the movie. It is a kind of film city on its own. It was also this place where I met a my Andaman friend Anvith, who had come to the trip with the “Red bandits”, Anvith comes from Shaligrama and he had come along with parents and sister, his trademark was his spiked hair. Two of us had a crazy time with all the dangerous rides in the amusement park. The entire group vacated from the park at about 11.30pm since most of the rides were closed for maintenance.

 

Our next stop was a place something like a crocodile banks. It is like a “Croc-zoo” which has a variety of crocodiles of different shaped and sizes. This was a very interesting visit and can be a haven for sea-wildlife specialist or I don’t know what are crocodile specialists called maybe they are called “Crocollogist” or something. Here there is also a aquarium where different types crocodiles are nurtured, so it was for the first time I really got to see the entire structure of other than on T.V. Being a observer and a hobbyist photographer myself, it was quite interesting for me to see the way the crocodile slowly moved in the water gracefully dominating all the other creatures. We cannot feed food for the crocodile directly, however inside the zoo there is a provision that we can purchase a bucket of meat and give it to the zoo warden, who would feed the crocodiles at regular interval,

 

Other than crocodiles there were also other wildlife creatures like turtles, snakes. Now I have absolutely no clue of either scientific or English categorical names of the variety of species of crocodiles, turtles or snakes. The warden here at the zoo also informed us that whenever some rare tortoise are caught smuggling in Chennai domestic or international airport or for that matter anywhere in Chennai, it is brought to the same zoo for temporary protection before releasing to its own habitat. Its a huge park so you need a lot of time to explore it, but the time was already 13.00pm and people had started getting hungry moreover we were also nearing our deadline which our tour operator had set us, so we had to leave in between our crocodile exploration. I think we paid the entry charge of 15/- per head but this was much more worth than what we had asked for.

 

We had a loud burping lunch at some hotel on the way to tiger cave and while having food since the hotel was jam packed we had to sit in whatever place we got so it happened that I got acquainted with still more people among “Red bandits” one of them is Mr. Sooryanarayan uncle. Initially I thought Sooryanarayan uncle was a little reserved person but on the contrary he was a very jolly good with an ever present smile on his face. I mean I had even observed him when we were in golden chariot amusement park; he was among the first ones to experiment with some dangerous new rides without hesitation.

 

And then I met Mr. Satish who I would perfectly define as a man with a mission, he always had a camera strapped on his shoulder wherever we traveled. Without camera Mr. Satish is incomplete without Mr.Satish his camera is incomplete, he was a serious sort with some terrific spontaneous “One-liners”, however most of the time he is into photography and on conversations with others.

 

 

Fine after lunch with stomach full no one would be in a mood to visit a place where he had to run around all the time so instead we opted to go to tiger park, this park had literally no tigers however this park has a good serene atmosphere and has rock carved in the shape of tigers. It as many huge rocks and boulders which is couple of meters high and his is quite nice place for relaxing without tigers.

 

Even though tiger park is a good place to relax as I said earlier we were here at a wrong time it was 14.55pm the sun was high on the sky and it was scorching hot and this particular park did not have many trees to provide shade to people so we desperately retreated ourselves into our bus and zoomed to our next destination of navarathna sculptures.

 

 

This place looked like a school of architecture the monuments and sculptures at this place looked as though they were touched by some expert artist of its time, these architectures hummed great precision, skill, talent , devotion and professionalism that the laborers had put in without the help of blue print or graphics. I mean till date I don’t know anybody who is able to carve an entire temple out of a single rock without the help of modern gadgets.

However this place is a little mystified as nobody knows the entire details about this place or who built this it is I feel still under the blanket of archeologists.

 

 

 The last place for our visit to Chennai was mahabalipuram temple now as we entered this temple the first thing we saw was mushrooming number of tourist every minute most of them foreigners, again even in this place there are lot of monumental features like a big elephant carved in a single stone, rock cut temples, huge boulders and too many photography scenes, some foreigner where asking really funny posing with some stone sculptures. This mahabalipuram has a long history which I know clearly but it is to lengthy to be explained right now. Maybe some other time, but again this place is another must visit if you be to Chennai.

 

After the last destination it was approximately 17.00pm in the evening, I was totally exhausted as I had been running all around mahabalipuram while taking pictures so now I thought I could doze off in the bus, while traveling back in the bus Binmani aunty suggested that we play antakshri, which brought me back to life. But here the elders were dominating in singing, hence very soon I realized they kind of songs that would be sung, and it was true the songs with which Atal bihari Vajpayee used to play antakshari was echoing in the bus or my grandfathers grandfathers grandfathers, times song was filling the bus.

 

 

Whenever I or my friend Anvith used to sing some new songs our elders used to look at us though we were speaking “JAADU’s language” from “KOI MIL GAYA”. So we understood the moral of the story and for the rest of the journey we just cheered for our elders songs. But overall it was a very interesting game where we saw even the elders behaving like kids including shouting some children’s words like “Tic Tic one…., Tic Tic two….” Or “Shouting Bandi” whenever other team looses

 

 

 (Bipin Sony)After traveling about two and half hour we finally reached back to our hotel in as I was feeling really bored and totally exhausted and was in no mood to eat vegetarian food. So I called my old friend Bipin Sony, who was right now in Chennai doing his masters and we decided to meet up in some fast-food restraunt. I freshened-up myself and went to meet my friend and all the way we discussed about Mangalore pub-attack and about slum dog millionaire, whenever I and bipin our discussion always turn political, so did this meeting. But instead of having in a fast food we had dinner in a posh Kumbhat restraunt. And after a nice chicken chettinad and appam my stomach was absolutely full and after about 2 hour or so I and bipin parted my ways. By the time I reached hotel I checked my mobile which had several missed calls from my dad and aunt for being late back to the hotel but by the time I reached back the hotel no noise was heard everybody was sleeping even I refreshed myself and at about 11.40pm I went to bed. (To be continued)

Andaman Trip Story (Day 3)

 

I could hear some guy with a sore throat singing very loudly and some other bunch of idiots instead of stopping him where joining his chorus. However that voice sounded pretty familiar, but I could make out whose voice it was, I still was lying on my bed but that voice was badly disturbing my sleep. I waited for about another 30second still that sore throat guy didn’t seem like he would stop singing and now he had also begun to yell, as they say desperate times call for desperate measures so I turned my head to the left , I couldn’t see anyone, but the voice was still heard so I turned towards my right, I could see something was glowing, I just got my hand closer to it and closely examined it, guess what it was it was just Kailash kher desperately trying wake me up with “Mangala mangala mangala mangala mangala mangala Ho”  the Mangal pandey title song.

 

Anyway all I had to do was press snooze and shut him up and go back to sleep, but it was less than say 5 minutes that I heard another “wake up call” in a shrill voice, oh no, don’t think it was kailash kher it was my dad. He was all up and ready at 07.30am in the morning and ready to go for breakfast, I mean I can never figure out why do people get up so early in the morning, but as for me I was already late and I knew I had to hurry with my routine, so I took Suprabatha kit and went on to get ready, within 20 minutes I fully ready. However by the time everybody had left for breakfast so I really had to hurry up, with no time to waste I had to dump my things in my luggage (not that I would arrange it neatly if I even had time) and quickly I sprinted towards to restraint l, thankfully everyone was still waiting for their menu to arrive, even I settled my place some where near Mr.Gangadhar uncle, he is one of the most quietest persons in the entire group of “Red bandits” and he talks only when it is extremely necessary, but every time gangadhar uncle always has the last laugh.

 

After a heavy non-vegetarian dinner the previous night I did feel like stuffing myself with more food so I just thought of having a katori of upma, let me tell u in some parts of Chennai they make upma out of rice and I really enjoyed eating it. After the breakfast we collected our luggage from our rooms, boarded the bus and proceeded towards the airport, the flight was scheduled to take off at 11.00am but since there are some security procedures to be followed we arrived to the airport say about 2 hours early, the city of Chennai even though it has god road is full of traffic so even though the airport is just 30 kms drive from the hotel we left quite early say about 08.30am from our hotel. We arrived at the airport say something about 9.15am and then after regrouping ourselves to a pack of 19 once again we headed towards the ticket counter and the proceeded to security and then eventually waited in the boarding room for about 30.00 minutes, wandering here and there and buying some last minute snacks, then finally our boarding call came in and we were escorted to our flight kingfisher. Once we were on board we took time to settle ourselves in our seat and then finally after hearing a sweet voice of announcer welcoming us to the airlines and salutations by the captain to the passengers the flight finally took off. 

 

It was a ok experience but I guess for such short travels of two hours kingfisher does not have a in-flight entertainment , we had a couple of magazines to read,  me and my friend anvith took some pictures and video of our group also and what more we could do, I would definitely would like to have Para-glided but I don’t thing the aviation ministry would allow me, anyway we had flown say what about some 1 hour 40minutes or more, finally after a long break a French captain spoke that we are that we are heading to land on the island of Andaman and Nicobar. And there it was I saw the first glimpse of the island which totally captured my attention a huge piece of land entirely covered with trees, complimenting this beauty was a huge formation of sea shore with crystal blue waters (guys I know it sounds exaggerating but believe me I am not exaggerating a bit). Even from such a great height of the flight we were in anyone could see the crystal blue water, which at least I had not seen before other than on T.V.

 

When I saw those waters, first thing I remembered was of a blue flavored Pepsi which the company had introduced earlier during the world cup I brought it and regretted it, but this blue which I saw now perhaps may never be able to forget.

 

I was totally lost in the seeing the island when suddenly the pilot radio crackled (now being a regular audience of “National geographic channel’s” air craft investigation I knew that pilot talking to the passengers during landing maneuver is never a good news) nevertheless I forgot al about the scenery and started staining my ears to listening to the announcement by the pilot generally in such cases I presumed pilot would ask us to get ready with our life jackets, moreover even before a week we could take off there have been almost 5 mid air disastrous I knew 1) Indian President Parathiba Patel’s flight landing avoiding collision with a passenger aircraft.

2) Indian Air-force and civil air-force missed a mid-air collision just by a difference of 1000 meters.

 3) Civilian aircraft in USA did a rough landing in Houston River

4) Another Australian charter plane carried out a same stunt by landing on river water.

5) A civilian plane flying to New York crashed at buffalo carrying 40 people.

 

So you see you cant totally my skepticism as unnecessary, anyways I don’t know about others but I was carefully listening to the captains melodious voice and I was almost ready to wear my life jacket, then the pilot said “due to a delay in a take off of another aircraft from Andaman Nicobar airport the kingfisher airways will delay its landing by another 5 minutes and instead would give a free aerial sight seeing to its guest without any additional charge” those last words made me breathe back to life.

 

Slowly I composed myself and started digging for my camera in the pouch, but the scenery was on the other side of the row, so I desperately started looking for a person whom I knew sitting on the window seat and knowing to operate digital camera and there she was already taking pictures with her own camera Anvith’s sister Deepika.

 

She is a MBBS graduate, she is again a very very silent person, anyway I called her for help and she took my camera and started taking pictures for me too. I must tell all you guys planning to go to Andaman please do not forget to keep your camera handy while you hover in air around Andaman. Very soon after 5 prompt minutes we landed the Andaman union territory of India at 12.30pm.

 

Now the only airport in Andaman and Nicobar is at port Blair so this airport is both a commercial as well as a military base, so do not get excited if you see gunmen surrounding you aircraft as soon as it lands, it is just a drill that the military personals perform when an aircraft lands at a military base and please do keep all your audio visual equipment inside the bag at all times or else it may be seized. It is a very small airport which operates only for half a day rest of the time it is a full time military base of INS Ankur.

 

And within few minutes after carrying our baggage’s out of the airport we started walking towards the visitors lounge and started reading a pluck card with our tour operators name on it and it was there as scheduled. A guy came up to us recognizing our cap and introduced himself as Raju and he said that he will be our tour guide for the next 5 days in Andaman Nicobar. He quickly got 4 of his Tata sumo victa car which was sufficient to accommodate 19 of us.

 

It was hardly a 5 minute drive to our hotel called “Heritage Inn”, it was a good hotel, but all the way while talking to the guide I saw that realized that he was god in doing his job and I mean he was a gem of a person but all the way he was totally engrossed in buttering his client, I mean that was a part of his work I agree but sometime it was just too much.

 

We were told by the guide that we have to get ready by 13.15pm to have our lunch and almost everybody was interested in it as the in-flight menu was not enough to satisfy our appetite. We again sat in our respective cars and we proceeded towards the hotel to have lunch. Now in Andaman anyone I think can survive I mean this is a tourist paradise. I was surprised to know that in Andaman almost all types of food in India is available be it North Indian or South Indian cuisine, Western or Continental, Bengali or Rajastani moreover the food tastes as good as it should be. Food is something that we can never complain in Andaman and Nicobar.

 

 

Once we finished our lunch we first proceeded towards Wandoor beach, were we first saw the clear water of Andaman prior to which we had seen it in the flight. It was not an illusion to the eyes it is really crystal clear water. I had not brought any additional clothes to play in water s I preferred to stay on land and take some pictures, this beach was kina very rocky with all types of jagged, sharp, round and oval kinds of rocks. Some group from Chennai had come to the beach to celebrate some festival or ritual in the same beach.

 

Meanwhile I spoke to a gentleman named Prasad who was the e resident of the island I told him that I was really impressed with the way the island and its waters was maintained. For which Prasad told me that it was only because that the industries have not been able to establish in Andaman due to shortage of raw material and that is one of the main reason why the island was able to maintain its natural beauty,

 

It was not quite sunny in the beach at that time we went so it was a great experience to scroll and rock and roll on the shores of the beach after about an hour or so we went ahead for our next destination. Here one destination is quite far from another so it takes us a lot of time for us to travel, but in Andaman when you say that travel it is not a suffering but I would rather call it a experience because wherever you see it is scenic beauty all together, the coastal belt, the hutment settlers, I mean everything is just like a add on to the beauty of Andaman (oh boy I am going philosophy again).

 

After a short stop at a local tea vendor we proceeded to a park called as a millennium park or Rajiv Gandhi point (it is yet to be inaugurated).

 

This is a small jetty which is recently built and well maintained and it is a god place to take a small walk or a stroll, here our group took couple of pictures as displayed below , there are also many statues in the millennium park like that of Rabindranath tagore , Subhas Chandra bose, Army tanks and a motion big clock.

 

 

We had actually planned to go to cellular jail (Kaala Paani) the same day, however since we were already behind our schedule and it was quite dark, so our guide Raju suggested us that we better attend the sound and light show in the cellular jail today and we cam postpone the jail visit for 19/02/2009.

 

So be it we decided to attend the cellular jail on some other day, however we had not yet brought the tickets for the show. So till our drivers got us the tickets we took a walk in the Veer Savarkar Park, this particular park was built in the memory of the great leaders of Indian independence who faced a lot of suffering as political prisoners in the cellular jail during the freedom struggle.

 

We were still chatting in the park when all of a sudden one of our drivers informed us that the show will be starting in seven minutes or so and he had brought us the tickets. So everybody just left loitering in the park and proceeded towards the cellular jail sound and light show. This show in particular is one of my favorites of my visit in Andaman, don’t worry I wont to tell the content of the show and spoil your visit when you be there, but I would just recommend that don’t skip this show because of any reasons, it conveys some of the important happenings that took place in the island jail before its independence, which was unheard during the freedom struggle and was confined to the four walls of the jail.

 

It was a open air stage show with a very effective presentation led by the voice of a veteran actor of Hindi cinema Om Puri apart from this the show is very beautiful co-coordinated and orchestrated. Not one point during the show did I felt bored or I got distracted, it was really bothering to know the way both the British and the Japanese treated the Indian prisoners in their own land.

 

It was a one hour show and at around 19.45pm the show got completed, the moment we came out of the presentation the faces of everyone told the impact the story of the island called “KAALA PAANI”.

 

We were almost an hour late for our dinner schedule but on our way to the restaurant the guide had arranged for us one last stop and that was “Gandhi Park”. However this park was just a leisure stop for the group, I mean nor the guide or anyone could relate the history of Gandhiji with this park, however might be that even Gandhi had come to this park.

 

It is a huge park with a lot of area coming under its carpet; I just got a couple of pictures of this place till we finally proceeded towards restaurant.

 

My family as usual had their regular bite but today I felt like having something Andaman style but to my surprise the waiter said that Andaman people do not have a specific regional food they blended their delicacy with rest of India, so with no there option I had only one go to try Nicobari Kofta and chapatti, I must have you tried bland marshmallow in some delicious yummy gravy, well that is exactly how Nicobari Kofta tastes like, almost melting in the mouth with its every end dipped in the sweet and sour gravy. I scooped out the biggest chunk of the Kofta and gobbled it up before my family could even know that it was there and can you believe I got away with my crime without being detected.

 

In the restaurant the hotel had sponsored our group with a separate room of 20 capacity.

 

Maybe we talked a lot with each other and made noise, which in-fact we did, Satish uncle N.K Gatty, Soorya Narayana uncle, Binamani Aunty, Bharathi Aunty, almost dominated the discussions with their own funny instances during their travel and it was a pleasure to hear these guys talking so nicely with one everyone.

 

Oh by the way N. K Gatty is my dad Full name Narayana Karangala Gatty, he is a civil contractor by profession most of the time he is serious in his professional relations but in personal like he likes interacting a lot of people.

 

Ok so that was almost it for the day after some really good time with the entire group, by the time we were about to retire to our butter man cum tour guide Raju appeared in from of us coming right at our face in Hindi“hello sir/ madam…. how are you doing today, hope you had a good dinner” and then he explained everyone with the next days plan, I was not in a mood to listen, so I went back to my room had a good shower and started watching some music and somehow I slept there itself after sometime which was actually 11.45pm I got up again not knowing what to do I switched on the T.V, since my dad was sleeping on the next bed he got up couple of times and he told me to go to sleep and switch off the T.V, But since I was not in the mood to sleep I kept on watching some Katrina kaif movie it I don’t know when I went to sleep.

Andaman Trip Story (Day 4)

 “But the guide had told that it is ok if we are ready by 8.00am, why do I have to get up so early” I argued with my dad, but my dad had his mission accomplished by shattering my sleep, that’s why he calmly walked off. I know my dad very well guys; he was just taking his revenge on me, because I did not switch off the TV that night on his request, so he just wanted me to learn the moral of the story “that I should never sleep late at night”.

 Lesson or whatever my sleep was over and now I went ahead to finish my morning suprabatha and after about 20 minutes I reached the ground floor of our hotel everyone way there waiting for the cab perhaps they were late. I was getting bored of waiting for the cab so I started searching for a subject which I could photograph. But to my bad luck I could not find anything, moreover I could see that the cab as approaching our hotel so I started keeping my camera back in the pouch. Like everybody I was boarding the cab when suddenly there was a thundering noise I the sky it was a huge aircraft which had just taken off from the Ankur military base it was flying so low that I knew that I could have got a really awesome picture, but now the moment had passed and I could do nothing but regret myself, and as I entered the cab Lena aunty welcomed me saying “good morning harsha” no sooner that I heard that compliment I started laughing to myself thinking about the way the day had gone so far.

By the way Lena aunty is from udupi bsnl, she is a cheerful lady who is very much interested in traveling and most of the time she keeps for herself and all the while she is admiring different places of visit.

 

All of us together like a convoy drove to our regular hotel annapurna, where today I had butter masala dosa, but my family had their usual idly vada. It was almost 35 minutes of our grub time in the restraint when our drivers advised us that it was about time that we proceed to Rajiv Gandhi jetty point to board the ferry. This travel advisory made our entire group lively and very soon within 7 minutes we were in Rajiv Gandhi point waiting for our boat, this is where we met this guy called pradeep, he was our guide when we visited the island, these tourist agencies have got cartels where they outsource certain functions to another agencies to minimize costs, later on they share profits with one another, pradeep was just part of the arrangement.

 

 

Since our group comprised of about 19 people we got an entire small ferry reserved for us after waiting for about 15 minutes and loading our lunch parcels on board.

We were off to the visit the first island out of three islands visits.  these small ferry are like large speed boats and it was about 30 minutes drive in the boat, and it was for the first time during our visit to the island that i really saw the crystal clear water so close i could never believe at least in India the water looks so beautiful it was just like seeing some bollywood movies which is shot in Mauritius or something. Everybody was in a good mood traveling in the open sea and thankfully nobody was sea-sick.

 

Very soon we reached our first destination called the Ross island, now this island is currently under the supervision of Indian navy, however pre-independence it was a military installation and both Japan and British rule had occupied it at some point. This island today is a tourist attraction with lot of coconut trees.

 

However earlier it was a strong military fortress of the British officials, even now as it is being maintained by navy there are lot of restricted areas in the island, this is a ecological zone and hence no plastic area so we were supposed either to keep our plastic belongings in the boat of in dispose it in the dustbin at the entrance.The island is pretty big and it is a trek of almost 1.5 kilometers within its territory, the pre-independence looks of this island are badly damaged after the recent 2005 December tsunami, as for now most of the buildings are draped with roots of some huge trees.

 

It is a very interesting sight to see an island full of British infrastructure. This island has got all the basic requirements that the British government used to provide to its officers and soldiers serving away from home. Despite being used by military officials this island was meant for non-military purpose. It had a water distillery plant

 Church

 Swimming pool

 Air Raid Bunkers

 

 Bakery

 one of the British officers had also built a temple for the Indians serving the British.

 There are also many recreational spots which now has been converted to art gallery or museum and these arcade portray the development of the island from its past to the present. On the rear side of this island there is an administrative building of the British officials with a beach. The tour of the entire island took us about two hours which was more than enough for our purpose, in fact we reached to our ferry 10 minutes before the schedule and then we started to our next destination the Viper Island. It was almost 11.00am when we started from Ross Island and it was unbelievable, I just could not make how the time was passing so soon.

 

 It was absolutely a pleasure traveling in a private ferry I mean you don’t get disturbed by outsiders or vendors of any sort. It is a haven for photographers we can literally take the picture of the entire city sky scrapers while being at sea.

 

 While going to Viper Island we have to go through a navy base at sea and it was then that the boats “MASTER” “Master is the designation of small ferry drivers, just like “CAPTAIN” for big ships”. It was at this point that our tour guide requested us not to do strange or unnecessary actions or signals outside or inside the boat as the boat is being monitored by the navy patrol. So at this point everybody remained restricted to their seats and did not indulge in much of any activity, after about 10minutes in the defense zone of the navy, the boat master suddenly halted the boat in the mid sea. We were obviously confused and as we looked at our guide he pointed at the left hand side on the rear of our boat, it was a navy patrolling boat which had intercepted us and signaled to stop. Those guys quickly came on their inflatable boats boarded the boats deck checked for paper works from our guide as well as the boat driver enquired them for license, questioned our guide if anyone of his guest were of a foreign nationality. When they were satisfied with the interview the got into their own boat and swiftly disappeared as they had come.

 

After this brief encounter with the navy we were again on the civil side of the sea, at this point I and Anvith sat on the rear end of the boat for sometime. When we came back I could see my dad driving the boat I didn’t know whether he was really driving it or whether I was being sea-sick. Very soon I realized that it was actually my dad driving the boat under the careful supervision of the master.

 Eventually even I got an opportunity to drive the boat.

let me tell you guys there is no experience like driving a boat , without a helmet , without traffic signal , without policemen , without gear , without breaks and most of all without road, without direction, its like heaven on earth.

One sight of viper island may just make you wonder why on earth have you come to this place you cannot see even a single specie of animal on this island. Even to tug the boat to the shore nobody was present. This island seemed to have lost its life for decades almost nothing to see, however as we closed towards the doorway of this island we could see that more than 3 ships had crashed on the port of this island.

 A tiled building was almost ripped apart from its centre

and the assumption which our mind was playing with us seeing the visuals till came to be true when our tour guide pradeep broke the news that this was one of the worst affected civilian island in Andaman which was badly hit by tsunami. As he finished saying this statement I could see the first signs of life on this island there were couple of people collecting he debris in the island, when I personally went and enquired about them they told me that they were from port Blair and they are just laborers on contract to clear the island, they also said that every evening after 5 pm a ship ply’s them back to their home after which the entire island again become uninhabited.

All over the island there was nothing more than scattered pieces of debris which had yet to be recovered by rehabilitation workers. The horrifying story of this island had just begun, this island was named after one of the famous poisonous snake know to mankind the viper snake, our expedition further on this island gave us a first sight of partly damaged red colored building which was like a administrative building of British era.

But on a closer look the building was a weird architecture, no score for assuming (I mean anybody can assume anything) but no nobody could make any sense out of the building infrastructure and again it was pradeep who broke the silence by detailing us that this place which we are able to visit after spending so much money was once upon a time a last wish of any person because this was the dreaded island of gallows, where many Indian freedom fighters have been hanged for showing their true patriotism.

Viper Island has its history written in one of the darkest hours of our modern time, yet it seems to be forgotten. This island has not much of entertainment significance however it can really capture ones imagination of our forgotten past.It was almost 13.00pm we had to bid bye to viper island very quickly as it is just a small stop, at least half of the way to north bay island everybody on the ferry was discussing about the brutalities that the Indians had face during the British reign. Meanwhile we also started having lunch on the ferry while going to our last stop of the day the North Bay Island

now this island is a total water baby’s spot; I mean I had read it on the internet that this island provided for snorkeling and many other water recreations now all I had to do was try one.(By the way if you carefully observe 20 rupees Indian currencies note you will be able to see an island with a tower it is actually the island of North Bay.) I and my friend Anvith made a first dash to water on arrival and we were up with our snorkeling gear , I don’t know where else in India you will get this but my strong suggestion to anyone visiting Andaman would be to try snorkeling and you wont regret this.

Everyone included me was drop dead exhausted playing in water and followed exact instruction like zombies when pradeep told that we had to leave the island. It was a great moment that everybody had on the island and everybody wanted to have more of it but unfortunately due to time constraints we had to go back. On the way back to port Blair most of them were tired and were almost sleeping all the while. It was also on the boat that I came to know that one of our under water guide while in water was stung by scorpion fish by the time he came out of water his leg had already started to swollen, eventually we came to know by our tour guide Mr. . Butter (Raju) that he had recovered in the hospital.

 

It was a great experience and you need not know swimming to do snorkeling as you will al the time be wearing a tube around your body to stop you from drowning and your entire trip you will be escorted by a professional water guide. After snorkeling it was bindass swimming for about 1 ½ hour more. The entire group had a great time in water everyone ladies gents young or old got to do snorkeling and it is really nice to see all the people having fun together like one big family. It was almost 15.30pm when our guide pradeep informed us that the boat had a long was to go and it was about time we had gone back.

 

For some people this was their first time in beach waters especially Mrs. Padmanabh, who recounted the incident on this occasion.

Yeah it is quite expensive paying 500 rupees for a 40 minutes shallow water dive but every penny is worth it, I could literally spot many corals like brain coral , tiger coral , mushroom coral etc , however I would also like to make a strong suggestion that while you go for coral view there is a device which enable you to take picture underwater without causing damage to your camera , it may cost you something around 800 rupees but it is available in the island so please make you purchases much ahead before you reach Andaman.

 

It was late evening when we reached the hotel after having a light dinner in the hotel I was shocked to know that next morning we had to go to a place called Baratang for which we had to get up at 03.00 am and I didn’t want to take the risk being forced to wake up in the morning so I went to sleep, can you believe without even switching on the TV I went to sleep at 20.00PM(actually I wanted to watch the movie Race but….. shoot my ill fated luck)

 

 

 

Andaman Trip Story (Day 5)

Towards Jarwa Forest

Time 04.30am we had traveled about half an hour from our hotel I was sitting on the rear seat of the tata sumo victa along with my friend anvith. It was a cold drizzling morning and it was pitch dark outside. I was feeling sleepy but since our party was traveling in darkness in a convoy formation the vehicles tailing us constantly switched on the lights to high beam which constantly disturbed my sleep. Moreover I had to keep a const check on my camera so that it would not come in contact with the moistures of the early morning wind.

 Today we were heading to a place called as baratang which has couple of tourist destinations like the lime stone cave, mud volcano, mangrove forest. Throughout this trip journey what bothered me was why on earth we were traveling so early without any breakfast. Though we had a bed tea served to us at our lodging by now my stomach was already singing A.R. Rehman tunes of “Jai ho” with hunger, all this sacrifice for what? I felt.

 

Moreover I just boarded the vehicle in which I saw my family seated not even bothering to see who was driving us. It was not till the same day 05.30am when we stopped at the “JARWA ROAD” police barricade, I realized that these were not regular drivers. When I enquired about the change in our routine with my uncle Chandrasekhar he told me that since we were going to a tribal area the vehicle drivers need a special permit which our former drivers are yet to receive, so our guide had to arrange for some alternative drivers for this particular trip.

But to go to this place we needed to pass through a tribal area called as “Jarwa road” named after the tribes living in the same region. Since the police barricade did not open till 06.00am in the morning the drivers advised our group to refresh our self in the nearby shops. So our entire “Red bandits” decided to freshen up ourselves and then have a grub at a nearby “Tela” (No contemporary English word) and I hate to call these self employment establishments as “Push cart” as I feel it is much more than that.

 

I know some people say Indian roadside food has high calorie it is unhygienic and all that blah blah crap, but guys I am not among them I just love these local people delicacies.

Meet Rajendar

There I met this fellow called Rajendar he was something in his 60, he had variety of food in his cart to choose from, this guys had excellent Public relation technique just like Sharukh Khan, through which he attracted his customers he insisted me to take whatever I want without being billed and give him accountability only after I am done eating. I know this was another kind of PR (Public relation) tricks but I was impressed.He spoke a lot and called himself as the Laalu Prasad of Bihar. Since this was one of the opportunities were my dad would not discourage me from eating roadside food I did not spare this golden opportunity and I grabbed to some really nice and crispy vada, water dosa again our Mangalore local delicacy and finally for dessert I had gulab jamun which was just being drained from its sugar saturation.

Wrong Timing

Eating Gulab jamoon was a result of a pact between me and Rajendar which was secret till now and if my family had discovered this then I would have had to listen to a lengthy speech from them for having sweet tooth cravings. However till that fateful day I had never understood why one should not try sweets on an empty stomach. They say once in every day 15 minutes god listen to everyone’s wishes randomly perhaps I had just asked for the answer and within 15 minutes after relishing the unforgettable Gulab jamoon I had to rush to wash room for suprabatha.(I would just like to say one thing to God “Wrong timing Boss Very Very Wrong timing”)

 It was 10 minutes to 06.00am we were close to board our vehicle again our then we were also handed over a paper of instruction which was also read aloud to us by the forest officials which said:

“YOU ARE ABOUT OT ENTER A TRIBAL AREA SO PLEASE FOLLOW THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTION

Do not give anything to the tribal.

Do not engage the tribes in conversation.

Do not disembark your vehicle under any circumstances.

Vehicle will be traveling at the speed of 42/Kph in a convoy formation therefore do not involve in any activities that breaks the formation.

Do not wear red colored clothes; do not put your hand outside the vehicle.

Do not take the pictures of tribes, nor signal them nor make any noise during the travel else you will be detained by the police escorting your vehicle”

 The instruction may not be exactly but it was something like that. The instruction made it very clear in our mind that we are traveling in a possible hostile territory else why would armed guard be escorting us.

 About 15 minutes later the entire convoy was in motion the drivers stopped playing the music and it was a journey of silence. In the front we could see that some guards were boarding the vehicles randomly. The first sight inside the restricted area gave a very cold picture of the jungle; it was much cooler inside the jungle maybe large number of plants and trees had something to do with it. For nearly 40 minutes we could not even see a single human being or animal for that matter (guys if you have seen that Hindi movie John Abraham starrer “Kaal” this forest entrance was just like that only that here we were traveling on a solid tar road.)

Tribe Spotted

We were about 60 minutes away from destination when our driver told us not to get excited but slowly to look at the left side of the window. We did exactly as instructed it was an unbelievable sight for the first time during our entire journey we saw tribal people. A black tribal lady with African facial structure held a small baby in her arms barely dressed she was just standing by the road, few feet further I could see another kid staring and smiling at the vehicles passing by.

 I still remember those faces it was like they had so many questions for us just like we had on our faces looking at them. As we nearing the exit we saw another group of tribe however this group being close to the civilized people spoke Hindi words and asked for food as we passed by they also wore clothes like ordinary people. 15 minutes from there we finally crossed the forest area and there we boarded a semi passenger barge which took us to the other side of the shore called baratang.

Towards Baratang

Baratang in itself is a small town but here since tourism has developed people living in this region are very hospitable. Here we met our guide Salaam who showed us a passenger boat that would take us to mangrove forest or lime stone cave. The guide also brought poori and bhaji along with him for breakfast perhaps this was arranged by tour operators but we unaware of this we opted to have food at the “Tela”.

After a while the boat it was a 25 minutes trip on the ferry during which I also had a chance of striking a conversation with a local cop who was from Nicobar, his badge showed IRF (Indian Reserve Force). I remember this incident while on the boat, when Anvith suddenly saw a crocodile and in excitement he called out my name so loudly that that the entire passengers in the ferry stood up to see the direction that Anvith was pointing at. Much to our embarrassment crocodile had again submerged in water, both of us could not control our laughter and the people already assumed that it was a prank and had started to mumble about it.

Mangrove Forest

 

We reached the mangrove forest area but since the water was shallow in this territory we were asked to board a small motor boat and take turn to go to the limestone cave. It was really a creepy area it was although we had come to some other world, mangrove creepers were all over the place.

 

We climbed on a bamboo platform which was like a small jetty just then a forest officers asked us to attend a small briefing about the forest and its ecological protection it was similar to the one we had heard in Ross island, even this reserved area was absolutely plastic free zone.

Limestone Cave

The reserved forest was very well nurtured in its natural habitation by the forest officials; the land was filled with greenery but was of non- agricultural cultivation. This forest does not have any wild animal therefore it is totally safe to walk barefoot.

This again was my first time visit to a lime stone cave and despite the darkness the scenery was too beautiful to be expressed out in words. It was pitch dark inside our guide had to escort us with a flashlight, meanwhile Anvith and his sister where having some serious scientific discussions about whether it was calcite rock formation or something else and as I was really terribly seriously scientifically equationally pathetic in science and math’s I knew I had to shut up and listen to some confusing scientific words and nod my head.

The cave was as good as the coral reef which I had visited previously in Northbay Island; the only difference was that it was clinging from the top. It looked like heavenly bodies in the sky and almost everything glittered as the light flashed on it. It is very interesting how we Indians associate almost anything in the world with god and goddesses even for its slightest resemblance with any of our gods.

We had this cave guide who seemed to be very religious so much that while constantly showing us limestone rock he resembled it to Shivling, Ganapathi, elephant and some other things (I was just smiling to myself while advising his fellow in my mind that “Gurudev it is just ground water formation buddy”) but he just went on and on with his mythological theory, since even my family seemed to have accepted the cave guides theory so seriously, I had to silently bear the humor to myself else they might have considered me atheist (secretly I am atheist).

We visited more than one of such similar caves and when we came out the forest official also told us that there are 39 of such caves in the area however due to their instability visitors are not allowed into it very often.

Driving the Boat

In this mangrove territory this was the only place of visit and since we also had the plans of visiting mud volcano we had to kind of hurry up. On our way back on the ferry the master of the boat was kind enough to let us climb the control room of the boat and ferry it to a particular distant and this time even Bharthi aunty took turn to drive the boat and she seemed to have enjoyed it. I even saw her taking instruction from the ferry master to perfect her driving skills.

Later it was mine and Anvith’s turn to drive the boat, as usual I was so happy to drive something without helmet without license without traffic without police without gear and without brake. I somewhere felt that I could make a good captain if I considered this option seriously I mean if “Titanic” were in my command Leonardo-di-caprio and Kate Winslet would have happy ending to their love story. But alas I was not born then (Yeah you guessed it right sometime I do like boasting myself.) Anyway 30 minutes later the three of us came down to the passenger section when it reached the shore.

Mud Volcano

By the time we reached the shore even our vehicles had arrived at the other side we boarded the vehicle and next stop was Mud volcano spot. Now initially when I heard rumors about this place from my mother I thought this was like the most dangerous spot of the trip (my mother is very much concerned about our safety so she cautious us. However sometime she exaggerates the details, this mud volcano spot was one such victim of her exaggerations she had told me not to go near it as it world irrupt dangerous fumes, fire and what not). However once I came here I realized that this place was entirely harmless) which even the government had declared in the notice (Kudos to my mother).

 This is just a place were constant eruption of mud takes place though irruptions spot is a cordoned area one can see the mud emitting out of the land with the distance as close as 5 meter, but it is non- fire volcano and if the FAQ’s are to be believed then during the irruption the mud is said to be cool not hot. We may have spent maybe 15 minutes in that place since there was not much to do in the place we went ahead to have lunch, the lunch was a typical south Indian dhaba with preset menu.

Back to Jarwa Forest

 

The ferry’s taking people across have certain timing and probably we were early so we had to wait for sometime after which we got our ferry. But again there was a police check post to cross of Jarwa road, the same which we had come in the morning. So to find some time pass and what other game the BSNL employees are good at than antakshari(Ha ha), but this time I was prepared as while coming on the vehicle our driver had played some old Mohammed Rafi song and I brushed up my memory. So we continued this game for more than 30 minutes or so it was fun even I gave some cues to some old classic songs, but later Padmanabh uncle started old Kannada classic songs including Bhajans and then I was totally clueless, but everybody enjoyed and kept completing every bhajan till its end.

It was almost 15.00pm when the barricade opened up and again we passed were supposed to pass through the same Jarwa forest by which we had come to baratang in the morning. However this time we saw tribes more frequently, in-fact two tribesmen even tried to stop our vehicle but the driver was tactful enough to avoid hitting them while maintaining his steady driving. It was quite sad that the local government is using these people as tourist attraction than approaching them to give them a civilized life.

On the way to Hotel

It was almost 17.45pm in the evening when we came out of the barricade restricted area OF Jarwa forest as usual we stopped at the food stop of Rajendar whom we had met in the morning. He spoke to us quite nicely and offered us to have more food and since it was tea time we had more options in food like Samosa’s, Aloo pattice which was freshly prepared, I was gobbling two each of everything and also found a nice spot to sit where kids playing around the lawn.

After sometime my dad signaled that we had to go so I went ahead to pay the bill to rajendar the “Telawala” but I don’t know why he refused to accept the bill , I had eaten something worth 125Rs, moreover he gave me another parcel and did not charge it. I did not know how to react to this I was humbled by this gesture, I wanted take time and thank him but the convoy had started to move so I just could give him a brief thank you and boarded my vehicle. Even as the vehicle moved slowly he started waving bye at our group.

After this it was a same road same hotel to have food (but today I had Andamani palak) and then same boarding hotel to sleep.

Andaman Trip Story (Day 6)

Morning Stroll

It was quite chilly morning on 19/03/2009 at 05.00AM, since I had slept early the previous night I must have got up early with comparison to my ordinary schedule. For sometime I rolled on my bed trying to catch some sleep but it was a fruitless effort, since I didn’t feel like sleeping anymore I decided to venture outside the hotel on my own. The receptionist who was on his night duty was sleeping, without making a slightest noise or bother the sleeping stallion I made my way outside the hotel, It was not drizzling but the moisture of the night had made its presence almost everywhere. The sky line had already illuminated itself as though it was six in the morning. Since Andaman is in the extreme south-east of Indian union territory it is one of the first regions in India to see the sunlight early.

 

The city was just coming to life for its daily routine a small tea stall owner was yelling at his assistant for not keeping a watch over the boiling milk while he was sweeping the shop. The road leading to our hotel was a narrow one some cows and stray animals were majestically sleeping in the middle of the road since there was no movement of vehicles at these times. But I didn’t have to maneuver myself; there was enough walking space through which I could continue to stroll. On my way I also came across IRP battalion (Indian Reserve Police) Headquarters, Andaman & Nicobar. It was a nice smooth road without any potholes or bumps, vegetable contractors had also reached the market place and they were negotiating their “Days price” for the goods, the result of this early morning debate was that the supplier won his quoted price.

          

I wanted to go further but it was almost 40minutes since I had started my stroll and I had to back to the hotel since I didn’t have my cell phone with me and I had not informed anyone about my short expedition. So I hurried back, 15 minutes later I began to panic about the panic scene in the hotel if I did not reach on time so I started jogging, 10 minutes later I was desperately trying to catch up breath (right from my childhood I am a total cabbage in sports and physical activities , sometime back when I was in my school my high school physical director lost faith in sports because of the way I played), so you can imagine right, even if I jog for say 10 minutes jog it is just like scaling some mountain for me.

 

“Karz” from dad

Somehow huffing as though I have been chased by the cops I reached the hotel at about 06.30am none of them seemed to be awake, the receptionist by now had even put his leg on top of his table and was sleeping royally, on my way to the room I met Jaya aunty who was probably interested to get a morning cup of coffee, we both greeted each other and went on our way, when I came back to my room my dad was still sleeping. I woke him up; he told me that “the previous night while you were asleep the guide had told us to get ready by 08.00 am so I will sleep for another hour don’t bother me, okay”.

 

I would have let him sleep, but that dialogue, yes yes that dialogue gave me a flash back (no no not of my previous birth) but the incident that happened two days back where my dad rudely work me up while I was sleeping I instinctively knew it was a payback time (meanwhile that rishi kapoor was playing the revenge guitar title tone from Subhas ghai’s movie “Karz” it was ringing my head all over ) and I knew what I had to do.

 

I picked up the most reliable weapon, the TV remote and switched on to a music channel that was quite loud volume compared to the silent morning (it was as though Neil Mukesh was speaking my intentions in a catchy way and singing “AAA Dekhe zara kisme kitna he dum jamke rakhna kadham mere saathiya”) I zooped to the bath room knowing the consequences if I was on the location of my criminal act. It was barely 20minutes that I had come back from Suprbatha, my dad gave me an angry young man look, (I swear on god, I could not stop laughing in my mind looking at that disgusted look on his face…. Ha ha ha ) I guessed he realized why I did that, so I did as I didn’t know what had happened (but my revenge worked, he was not even able to sleep for twenty minutes forget about the hour he was talking about…. Ha Ha Ha) and then even I got ready.

 

Chatham Saw Mill

All of us had finished our breakfast and were waiting for our trip greeting by our guide Mr. Raju who informed us that most of our visits will be within the city limits. Since that particular day we were sort of one vehicle the guide requested some of us to switch to other vehicles which I and my friend Anvith readily agreed. We got to sit with Umashree aunty Leena Aunty, Binamani aunty, who were all the while traveling in the same vehicle from the start. Now this vehicle had senior most people among the group, so I initially thought I had to keep quite all day pretending to be decent guy, but it was not at all like that, it was a total merry group. All the way while traveling these people kept on sharing their funny experiences in their career some old time stories and all that.

 

  

Soon we reached Chatham saw mill; this is one of the oldest saw mill in India which is still operational, it is also a historic place there are many areas of this huge factory which was also bombed during the World War II.

 

 

Apart from having a saw mill which carries’s out wood work right from cutting of trees to the final chemical treatment stage it also has a museum which stands as a testimony to the history of not only this place but of most of Andaman and its growth as a civilization.

 

There are several aerial pictures of Andaman, shipping equipment and navigational equipment, wooden handicrafts and other similar handiwork.  

 

  Mini Zoo

 

Chatham saw mill was the first destination of the day and the second one was a mini zoo. It is just like any other zoo it has got visitors very often. Now guys do I need to tell what the zoo looks like!!! Okay there are monkeys, parrots, snakes, eagles, crocodiles and other animals got it.

 

 

Apart from the trauma of being away from their natural forest habitat, the animals of this zoo is constructed close to the city which I don’t understand the intention of having this zoo in the city.

Just think about it for us these animals are like entertainment it must misery to these animals who have to cope up with city life which is polluted by noise, air and all sorts of pollution.

 

Samudrika and Aquarium

Next we were on our way to a marine zoo Samudrika; it is maintained by the Indian navy. They call it zoo but I would rather call it a museum because most of the items put on display over this place though they belong to marine life they are dead. If you guys are interested in things like corals, shells, navy stuff, fishes and things like that then this would be a place you would not want to miss.

 

Though this is not a huge space or something it is worth visiting this place. Being surrounded by water you can’t be away from its creature so were we as most of our visit included the water lives so was or next visit which was a fish aquarium.

Now there are many varieties of fishes in these huge aquariums (I know they are fish that’s it, I can’t name them guys).

 

There was also a big carcass of a dolphin which was painted in a black coating or something, some fishes were also kept in some chemical solution (After my PUC this was the first time that I entered a place where they kept things in liquid solution I just do know how those dead animals live in such a stinking solution. I hated it when I was in PUC and I even hate such pungent stinking place today also)

 

“Cellular Jail or Kaala Paani”

Then came our last place of visit in the city for that day and that was “Cellular Jail” or “Kaala Paani”. Now this particular place I was longing to go from the day I came to this island, the other day we just saw the lights and sound presentation but today we got to see the actual jail itself.

 

The very moment I saw the glimpse of it I was dumbstruck by its massive size, till then I had just heard about it but this was the first time we got to see it. And out of practice I started taking pictures automatically still not being able to digest the fact that I am actually standing in “Cellular Jail” (no I am not making drama, I really felt like that). This jail has seven blocks out of which only three are standing today the other four were destructed during the allied bombing of Japan occupied territory during the world war II.

 

The guide who toured us the entire premises informed that Indian freedom fighters in the jail were kept in total isolation from one another even the structure of the jail is built in such a way that one Indian freedom fighter is not able to talk to another.

 

And for no reason whatsoever the freedom fighters were punished with methods like getting them dressed in jute material clothes and asking them do hard labour in the hot midday sunlight, whipping their mere bone skin by flogging, replacing freedom fighters with cows to extract oil from the seeds and coconut, the freedom fighters were also kept in dark room for days, other methods included food deprivation , sleep deprivation and if some one is really lucky enough to escape all these miseries they would get quick death in gallows.

 

We toured the entire jail complex, the watch tower, cell in which the freedom fighters were kept to serve their sentence; we also visited the cell of the great Maratha Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who was also kept in this jail even after independence till 1960. This jail is a nothing less than a complex of horror filled with the stories of brutality, incompetent, atrocities tales of the ruthless British Empire and the Japanese monarchy.

 

The administrative building of this jail complex is now converted into a museum where photos of historical moments of this island are displayed like the visit of Netaji Subhas Chandra bose, the great freedom fighters, unfurling of the Indian flag in port Blair, some old photos of this island and so on.

 

A thought I had while visiting “Kaala Paani” “It was an era of nightmare to these island which now seems to have gone just as it came, however these walls still seem to be crying out aloud to the highest of the sky and to the deepest of the sea with agony and pain demanding justice which never came.”  

 

The story, the people, their lives, the brutalities of this island, everything really touched me. And as a true Indian I would rather visit “Cellular jail” at least one more time than visit Shabarimala or Tirupathi, Mecca or Medina, Vatican City or Jerusalem. I somehow really felt satisfied and had a peace of mind the moment I came out after visiting the “Kaala Paani”. I felt as though as I really witnessed the freedom struggle and as though even I part took in it. I no more felt like an alien to my nation. I would recommend anyone at point blank to visit this place at once.

 

Shopping Shopping

I was still mesmerized in a mood of a patriotism all through the afternoon, even during lunch and also while we went to back to our hotel. I slept till 04.00pm, when we started towards the city. As next day would be our last visit in Andaman our tour operators guided us to a shopping complex.

 

Most of the things in the shopping were made out of conch shells, so I didn’t feel like buying; I mean what I would do with it. But I thought of buying something to my sister and mother who had not come to the tour because of my sister’s examination. I could buy anything I want to my mother I knew, but in my sisters case, me and her have only one thing in common “WE HATE EACH OTHERS SELECTION”. So I had to find a representative to buy something which I don’t like but most probably my sister would, so I selected a panel of two, My Granny and Bharathi Aunty.

 

And those were very active panelist (Thanks to my foresight…..again boasting ehe..he..he..he..he) My granny helped me buy a coral beads and ear ring to my sister and Bharathi Aunty selected a nice white purse and multi colored wooden bangles. As for my mother I myself bought a sari.

 

Shopping Patterns

Okay I brought couple of sweatshirt and a track pants and within 25minutes my shopping was over. But wonders oh wonders oh wonders I realized that rest of the pack had not even selected anything yet. But they had literally made the sales people show almost every sample of dress or whatever from the rack and yet they were not able to decide. I just kept on wondering it was 18.45pm and yet we didn’t seem that we were going to have our regular dinner at 19.00pm.

 

For sometime I was feeling very tired seeing the way the ladies were selecting different variety or same thing, my leg had already started aching running the marathon from one shop to another as we had decided to move in a pack. But soon out of habit I started entertaining myself by observing shopping techniques of different people.

 

First my aunty (Shakuntala) Chikki she was selecting a showpiece for her home and her contestants had finally narrowed down to a monkey’s statue carved out of coconut. She held two monkeys in her hand and the rest of them were on the table; she was searching for defects of craftsman ship in those lifeless creatures. Oh my goodness the way she looked at those monkeys seemed as though George bush was looking at Saddam Hussein and thinking “Now that I have caught him what should I do first? Should I leave Iraq or hang him first.

 

Then I saw my granny who brought a travel bag, I wondered why did she every buy a travel bag, it was later I came to know that her shopping was so much that it was not possible to keep it any other bag than the traveler bag.

 

Bharathi aunty was buying some red Rose and green Leaves corals so that she can align it with the gold pendent which she was making. I think she went almost 6 different shops to select that particular design.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Padmanabh were peacock hunting they had a plan to give souvenir to some people in Mangalore so they made the counter sales people place more than 20 pieces (20 pieces only because the shop had only so much) of peacock in the display, I think they brought everyone of it. Meanwhile my dad even he had finished shopping and he was eating Cornetto ice cream.

 

I feel if women of our country would be doing a great job if given the post of quality control officer in every department, they really have so much stamina, patience and they are so meticulous in seeing even the last bit of final detail which men usually overlook. I think these things are quite instinctive.

 

It was 20.00pm we left the shopping I said to myself “Jai Ho” after this we had our dinner and as usual everyone was having a great time sharing their experience and funny moments only I was the one who had kept my mouth shut….. Till Now.

I had recovered myself from the “shopping disorder” and then I had shower kept my camera on charge and then started watching T.V, I was watching “Race” on a local movie channel but somehow before “Race” started I slept.

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Andaman final day 7

Dose of television

The moment I got up the first thing that pricked my mind was that today was our final sight seeing in Andaman, so somewhere in my mind I found it difficult digest that the vacation time was over so quickly.

 

It was almost a week since I had stopped sleeping for nine hours so by now I was used to getting up early. It was about 04.20am I started watching T.V, my dad who might have just slept for 5 hours got up startled and started looking around, and he requested me to switch off the T.V to which I dutifully disagreed and continued watching. I knew my dad he would not give up his eight hour sleep for anything let alone my argument, he did not even bother to say anything extra he wrapped himself in the blanket and dosed off.  I gave a wicked smile to myself and announced loudly in Kannada “Yellaru malagiddhaga avanobbane yedda avare Buddha” meaning in English “when the whole world sleeps he who wakes up (enlightened) that is Buddha”.  I guess my dad got infuriated which my annotation and he yelled at me saying “hopeless fellow” in his typical south Indian rajnikanth style. I just chuckled with laughter and watched T.V.

 

After winning that brief battle of “Teeveepath”with my dad the room was filled with silence for about thirty minutes, expect for sharukh and deepika singing “love mere hit hit soniye”, Aamir khan from his movie doing “guzarish” and some stuff that rapper snoopy was singing (god knows in what language), then in between there were my favorite old song “Gulabhi ankhen jo teri dekhi” “Main shayar toh nahi”, and all such my old time favorite classic songs. It was almost 04.45am my dad’s mobile making some polytone music, yes it was the wakeup alarm.

 

Towards Havelock island in M.V RANGAT ship

The entire group was standing in a single line formation to board the ship, the time was 05.50am, and the ship was scheduled to leave at 06.00am. It was a huge ship her name was M.V Rangat (M.V stands for motor vessel). Suddenly the name caught my attention, although the ship was addressed as “SHE or M/S or MRS”, the name “Rangat” sounded masculine (ha huh…I guess the ship makers expected a “male ship” but a “female ship” was born instead so in order to overcome their grief they must have named it like a man… guys this is only my theory).

 

Our turn finally came to board the ship after we found our seats and we settled down by then even the ships started taking a slow sail from the bay someone from our organizers side started handing over the food packets to our group. I was not hungry but I don’t mind gorging food at any given point of the day. So here it was for our chomping pleasure our very own “Idly Vada and Sambhar. The idly was of a regular shape and size, however the vada’s were comparatively small from the one we get in Mangalore, I mean in Mangalore one vada is sufficient to fill half of the stomach. The vada and idly with sambhar, the sambhar was quite chatpata, you could even supplement for soup, I think the flavor of sambhar really complimented the taste of both idly and vada.

 

Rangat Ship and it crew

I was feeling suffocated sitting in the same place for a long time so I informed my dad that I was going above the ship deck to catch some fresh air. As I was exiting the passengers lounge, the crews of the ship dressed were hurriedly moving from one corner to another. M.V Rangat is a passenger ship; it is not like titanic but has all the basic infrastructure and is well maintained.

 

The doors in this ship was very narrow only one person can pass through this at a time, for the benefit of the passengers emergency instructions and signposts  were put-up almost every where. There are also some restricted areas in the ship in which only the crew had the permission to enter. As I stepped out on ship’s rear lower deck, the water gushing out of the propellers was the first sight that caught my eyes; it is when you see sights like these that we realize the tremendous amount of force that these machines exert themselves, to take us to our destination.

 

The crew members of the ship interacted quite freely with the passengers. I even happened to meet one of the crew members named Anuj who was keen on telling me about his contract under which he was committed to the company. He was quite young maybe 32yrs of age he says although he loves his job and pay he hates being away from his family.

 

After a brief chat with Anuj I went on the top berth of the ship. It was a three hour journey by ship to Havelock, so everyone was trying to get themselves busy with something or the other some where chatting others were constantly looking into the open sea while others like me where busy taking pictures. But after sometime like everyone else even I was bored, suddenly the gates of my destiny opened when the XO of the ship Nakiran invited Me, Anvith and deepika to visit the captains cockpit (that was it for the next two hrs I knew it, apart from jumping to the middle of the ocean the only thrilling thing to be added to the journey was visiting the control room of the ship).

 

Initially all three of us were hesitant to speak anything but gradually as our acquaintance with the XO grew we started behaving normally, especially I and Anvith we posed our selves in every possible ways along side the instruments in the cockpit. The XO was a really cool dude despite our monkey acts he never bothered to stop us; on the contrary he was amused. At a certain point he let me even wear his cap and pose my self with the walkie talkie as though I was commanding him.

 

It was also an informational visit as XO Nakiran gave us deep insight into the shipping industry and how we can pursue it as a profession if we are interested in it. He also said that though his duty was on a contract basis each lasting for three to four month he did not mind the terms as long as it pays him generously. His work which lasts for four months a year is enough to look after him in luxury for the rest of the year, he says despite the global market meltdown the demand for shipping sector is constant.

 

The captains cockpit seemed to be equipped with almost all types of safety equipment like life raft , satellite devices , paddle and a boat , signaling reflectors , flares , sign flags, GPS , sonar , wireless devices and all those sort of things.

The water was just slicing through the rough waters as though someone is sliding on shoe blades on an ice hockey stadium. These real life shipping officials did not seemed like those overpaid over-actors we see on T.V playing the role of a captain, with short white beard , navy blue coat and hat, smoking cigar or pipe all the time. These guys were simple people like you and me proudly doing their job.

 

Reaching Havelock Island

We were almost nearing the port the XO gave friendly request to everyone in his cabin to vacate as they had to maneuver the ship to the shore and they did not expect any disturbance. By now everyone had understood the complex nature of work the captain and his crew carryout during the course of the journey, so we shook hand and parted to the passenger deck. Soon the ship reached the port and we disembarked he ship.

 

Our guide manju had pre-arranged a jeep for our transportation to the Havelock beach. It was just then my eyes happened to fall on my wrist watch, I was surprised to find out that it was only 09.00am the morning.  That two hour in the ship totally kept me out of tune with time. I was very happy since there was more time for us in the beach to have fun. After seven kilometer by road we finally reached Havelock beach, thought these roads came under village limit it was quite well maintained.

 

I and Anvith were already in our beach dress so we first stopped at a shop were they rented out snorkeling gears, initially also brought the flaps with me but since we were in shallow waters it was not much of a use. I feel everybody while going to beach must have a snorkeling glasses which can help you to see a lot the under water life, especially in Andaman waters which has lot of colourful fishes in it.

 

It was a great time for all of us to take a dip in the crystal blue waters. Initially everyone ventured towards the water for a swim. However what we did not realize was that though close to the shore the waves showed even there, one such big wave left almost everyone in the beach toppled head over heels (everyone all the 20 of them). Once that wave had surpassed everybody was trying to recover from red eyes, some still trying to spit out the salt water, some also seemed ready to pack-up from the beach and some even blaming one another for their fall, but very soon everybody started staring at each other and laughing in their highest voice. It was a very funny scene everybody though embarrassed started imitating one another reaction to the wave. Especially my granny who was miming the reaction of my aunt shakuntala, who seems to have started running opposite direction as soon as she saw the wave coming (as though tsunami was on the way), but unfortunately for her as she did not keep her legs firmly on the ground the water just swept her off her feet (whenever I still think of that scene, even while I am typing this I still laugh like crazy)

 

The water in the beach is not salty however it can get quite rough, at first even after swimming for about 30 seconds I realized that I had hardly moved 3 meters from where I had started the water did not even let me budge from the spot. The water seemed to be challenging almost every time, so much so that I was literally forced to adapt to a swimming methods which after lot of improvement and perfection seemed to work but was not able to make much of difference against those waters. Yeah it is fun when the water challenges you to try its limit, especially in beach where the water movements are almost unpredictable. The waves literally made you dance to its own tunes and I tried hard not to, but instead I tried to swim against it (both me and the waves seemed to have some sort of ego battle going on). I had snorkeling goggles I was able to see that the geographic surface under the water was in a step i.e. you will feel that you are walking on a plain ground suddenly the ground give way to a deeper ditch. Sometime the five 5 feet surface ground suddenly stretched to 8 feet without warning.

 

Water and Me

Myself I had a great time swimming far and wide and when I turned up to my watch there were still more than two hours to go, the guide told us that we had head back by 13.30pm to have our lunch. So I was trying to use every moment of the time in what else than swimming. Eventually I also started floating in water, usually in beach it is quite difficult to float because of the waves changing its pattern but this is one of the very few beaches I felt floating was easy.

 

The beach slowly started accumulating crowd more number of people started flooding he beach with their families. Since almost all the good spots in the beach was getting occupied  I cold not swim continuously so I decided to take long shot from the shore to the beach where I could see a yatch anchored, I swam about 70 meters and I could see the yatch coming closer to my line of sight and this made  psychologically exited and I started swimming aggressively(which was actually a wrong decision from my part as I was out of swimming practice for couple of months now) and all of sudden out of nowhere I had this terrible terrible pain in my stomach. Then suddenly I realized “Shoot I had a stomach cramp” this is the last thing I expected while swimming, this happened maybe because I did not take sufficient liquid before going to take a dip in water.

 

Till date I had encountered only once that too in swimming pool, however at that time I was in 4 feet deep water so I was able to walk my way through, but in this case the surface of the water might have been at-least 12 feet deep. Stomach cramp is just like having a muscle catch in the leg or hand, worst news was whenever I felt that the stomach cramp had settled and started to swim it started paining more and more (it was paining as though some sort of acupuncture treatment has gone wrong or listening to math’s lecture) the shore was atleast 70 or hundred meters far and I had nothing to rest upon, so I had no other option but to swim which by now I was totally incapable off. I did not want to raise an alarm because then I would be a embarrassing attraction so raising alarm was totally out of the option for me (which is actually the wisest thing to do when stuck in such situation “come what may”)

 

If only I had my snorkeling glasses I could not only estimate how deep the water is but also I could have given rest to my aching leg muscle for a second or two, and then I could have tried swimming. I was desperately trying not to show any sign of panic over my face, suddenly I could see my dad waving his hand back and forth which was a sign for me to come back. I pretended to be having fun and signaled thumbs up saying everything was alright, I would prefer to stay in the same depth for some more time. My dad said nothing but he turned the other way round, meanwhile the water currents in the water was getting stronger (or maybe I was getting weaker) not only that but also it was pulling me against the shore (Without any help I thought it may not be possible to come out of the mess I had put myself moreover I started having crazy ideas that I may get a blacked out and soon be in the dinner menu of the sharks and all that. At this point I hated that discovery channel for putting all those weird ideas in my head). My hands and leg had started shivering but were not aching so I decided that the best possible way to relax is free float in water. As I was floating I was desperately trying to recollect any incidents in my life which I had come across because of my will but I could hardly remember any incident (yes but I remember this incident of 10^th standard class where I along with my no good friends stared making fun of the great tenzing Sherpa and Hillary who accomplished scaling 8848 meters of Mount Everest, I said to others “what’s a big deal given a chance and resources even I would have done it”. I did not realize that those guys climbed a vertical distance and now I was in a situation where I could not even move a horizontal distance of  70 meters I guess somewhere in the skies Tensing Sherpa and Hillary maybe dancing to some tape recorder music looking at my sight.).

 

I was still floating in the water and all these memories of studying overnight during the examination and getting a average pass marks in math’s during my tenth standard started passing over my head (especially that geometry and algebra, which I felt was best to be trashed in Vamanjur dumping ground and set it on fire along with plastic bag and whiskey bottle and also Pythagoras). I also recollected an incident where I had run 1500 meters to get selected for NCC selection when I weighted 92 kilos. I came last but still I was selected because the selection committee was happy that I did not quit the race. Ok…..enough of flash back I was really in trouble guys, if I did not hurry towards the shore quickly someone in the group would press that panic button which was the last thing I wanted to see around me.

 

So I decided to go ahead just when I was about to start I constantly started chanting (not any god’s mantra) but NCC mantra which I had once read in a camp “when the going gets tough the tough gets going”, saying this I started swimming towards the shore. Since I knew that waves would constantly alter my route towards the shore I decided not to free style swimming instead I tried to do the dog-paddle. I had to keep my head up all the time while I swam so that I could remain on course and also so that I could judge my distance.

 

So slowly I started to swimming against the water, I had to put a tremendous force on my body to swim against the water as I was doing that the cramp just kept on increasing to the core. Somehow I kept on saying the NCC mantra and struggled my way towards the shore, dog-paddle swimming is quite slow since in this technique only hand is used as paddle. Slowly slowly I kept on going forward (I could not believe that I was struggling to cross a distance of 40 meters), I was nearing the shore somehow and the distance was only 20 meters at this point the stomach cramp I guess it had become dead numb, I gathered all my energy and did a free style sprint for the 20 meter dash to the water(I could not feel the pain any longer), and I did not take my head above the water till I bumped to somebody in the water, I don’t know wheather it was a boy or a girl, I just walked off from the water. I was never grateful to have land under my leg the way I felt at that moment. Just then Anvith came to me and asked how the water was; I did not know what to say.

 

Even though I have elaborated the entire incident to you in more than 5 paragraphs the entire incident took place only in 4 minutes.

 

After this it took me almost five minutes to recover the shock, I did not share the incident with anyone till date, then after five minutes I went to the water again all pepped up. Suddenly I heard a voice “take my advice next time don’t try to be a hero” I was shocked to see my dad; I guess he was observing me all the way.

 

 

 

Moving on

It was almost 13.30pm we boarded our vehicle and preceded towards our lunch destination, after having a simple south Indian thali, we did not have much to do in the island so we waited for the boat in a small hut near the ship harbor. The environment in that hut was filled with life, everyone was giggling, sharing their experiences in the beach water. As for me I was thinking only two things

1. The incident that had taken place at the beach and

2. That we were leaving Andaman the next day.

 

At around 15.30pm we boarded the ship, but my mind was still bugged with the incident that had taken place in the beach, though I was acting normal with others. And I also realized that it was not that the water was harsh, it was just that I was not used to swimming in such waters. I mean of course I always have bath under a shower but that cannot be considered swimming right.

 

Anyway it was the same story as usual we disembarked the ship went to the hotel had dinner I did not bother to pack as I had very little luggage to pack for the next day. So I decided to go to sleep as I was very exhausted swimming. But guys whatever it is NCC saved my day “Jai ho NCC”, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”

(to be continued)

National election watch

Hi guys:

 

Please take time to read this and if you really find it worth pass it among your contacts 

 

                Elections 2009 is here. And like most of the time some of us either elect a candidate on the basis of speculation or rumour or we dont even bother to go to the polling booth because of our own old lame excuse of not finding the right candidate.

 

But this election 2009 we have a chance to know our candidates and find the right person to lead our society for better during these national and global turmoils.

 

Irrespective of whichever party you vote, we have the Right to know the details of all the candidates who will be contesting the election. As per the information submitted by him or her in the affidavit to the election commision.

 

                As a volunteer representative of www.nationalelectionwatch.org I advise you to visit following links where we can know the details of you candidates in your constituencies.

E.g http://myneta.info/dakshina_kannada

http://myneta.info

 

OR

 

SMS : SMS 56070 Myneta [PINCODE]

 

OR

 

I am also displaying these information in my blog

@ 

http://freedom2xpress.wordpress.com

 

If you want to volunteer our cause of dissiminating election and voting related information contact or register at :

 

www.nationalelectionwatch.org 

or

http://myneta.info/howtohelpus.php

 

After all this please remember this is our nation and the future of our country till the next election lies in our vote for democracy.Do not underestimate the power of your single vote because this nation of billion starts with 1.

 

We get to decide the fate of ourselves, our family and our nation only once in 5 years so let us make the best of it and make the whole world roar in one voice “JAI HIND”.

 

 

With Regards

Harsha Raj Gatty

Ph:+919448895240

Mail:harsha_raj1987@yahoo.co.in

Poll-Mangalore-Bol

Why BJP won the Mangalore Election – 2009 

 

After about a year long election campaign the fever seems to be finally over with UPA winning 262 seats in Lok- Sabha leaving its closest competitor NDA away from nearly 100 seats from forming a cabinet. The election was less controversial this time however it had some severe and unexpected responses ranging from a mere 43 percent of voter turn in Mumbai even after the recent Mumbai incident of 26/11 to the BJP coming back to power in Mangalore after the recent church attack in Mangalore. Below are my brief analysis and estimates of why a secular government is not able to establish in Mangalore local administration.

 

 

Ideological factor

 

Over the years in Mangalore BJP along with its sister concerns like RSS, Bajarang Dal, and Shree Ram sene has emerged as an ideological institution rather than a political party. While other political parties come to the forefront only during elections, BJP has been active throughout the year, if not for political reason then it has definitely come to the front stage showing its religious colour during national and regional festival For instance Hindu samajotsava and anti-terror campaign, raksha bandhan etc. In-fact the BJP even conducts a week long or sometime even a 20 day long camp personality development camp for youth through their sister concern RSS.

 

On an average BJP is able to connect with each and every individual on all the common fronts in Mangalore. It is during these events that the BJP slowly injects their political ideology in the minds of the people, which is very effective to an extent that sometime people do get carried away against their own personal beliefs.

 

 

“POO-JYAARI-DHA” FACTOR

 

BJP has been strategically churning its MP candidates in Mangalore and has been introducing fresh faces in the electoral, whereas the congress and others despite losses in former election have not opted for any unique strategy. It seems that secular parties have totally given up hopes from any of their candidates winning elections from Dakshina Kannada. This reference particular goes to the congress party Janardana Poojary, who over the years has not only enlarging a dent on the reputation of his party but also has earned a infamous reputation for short temper aggression , instable words and poor public relation. Despite this fact the congress party has placed him as their candidates from Mangalore

 

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

 

CPI (M), this party has picked a wrong front to represent itself. I mean why in Mangalore? What or whom does the communist party want to represent in a constituency where almost all the people are born with enterprising trait and entrepreneurial skill in their own business and irrespective of religious barrier most of them are strictly religious.

Mangalore is economic centre for the Karnataka as Mumbai is for India with over 5 MNC’s, 6 National limited and being Headquarter for 4 nationalized banks, Harboring 9^th largest port of India and catering to the 75 % of exports and imports including coffee, 3 Special Economic Zones, Literacy rate of 83 % which is higher than the national average of 59 %, every big-shot person has a rag to riches tale in Mangalore.

 

So practically I don’t see any point were communist would be able to help mangaloreans in their venture. On the contrary the general notion of communist principle socialism and atheism creates fear and panic among the majority of community who are also potential voters in their constituency. I just want to make a point that instead of desperately pursuing an isolated and alienated philosophy in the community of Mangalore. The communist party must strategically join hands with the local congress party and in-turn they could ask for an alliance in the UPA Union government. However in today’s scenario it seems too late now. And it reminds me of a famous Hindi proverb about “Dhobi ka….na ghar ka nag ghaat ka” Yes you guessed it right.

 

 The Independent candidate’s

 

After a long time it was refreshing to see 6 independent candidates with new ideas willing to represent Mangalore constituency. Majority of them seems to have had the barrack Obama policy of “Change we can” in their mind while filing as a candidature. Some of the candidates even seem to have qualification as high as PhD’s and even the voters eagerly gave these new aspirants a fair amount of chance to come to power. However the existence of the independent candidates caused a major hindrance for a secular party coming into power as the voter’s bank got divided between secular and progressive factor, while the BJP voters as I said earlier “remained firm and in some cases also had a increased participation”.

 

Conclusion

Approximately 72 % of people voted in Mangalore election , which is a very common standard set by Mangalore even though it is very high compared to some other regions including economic capital of India Mumbai where approx 43 %the voter turnout was witnessed. However since 28% of people in Mangalore decided to stay away from election the voting results may not be with which everybody is happy about, especially after the recent Pub incident and the attack on the churches in Mangalore. BJP rallied with more than 40,000 votes. Every great turning point in history has a great story maybe now the people will realize the consequence of not voting their right in the ballot.

(This article has also been published in http://mangalorean.com/browsearticles.php?arttype=Opinion&articleid=1491 )

Dr. Binayak Sen. – When Silence speaks…….

Introduction

 

Every one of us at some point in our life is either a part or victim of unlawful practice or justice; most of us choose to take a backseat owing to the gravity of the situation or for our convenience. But still there are some of us who try to change the way the things function in the society. For more than once even I have gone against my conviction for which I am still ashamed of.

 

Dr. Binayak Sen, a pediatrician and a public health specialist, he is also a national vice president of People’s Union for civil liberties. He is different from all of us he believes in bringing about social reform. But before we begin to discuss about him let us go through his credentials.

 

Dr. Binayak Sen:

1) The first Asian and the tenth annual award winner of Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights in 2008.

2) Recipient of Paul Harrison award of 2004 for a lifetime of service to the rural poor awarded by the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India.

3) R.R. Keithan Gold Medal was awarded to Dr. Binayak by Indian Academy of Social Sciences (ISSA) on 31 December 2007 for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of science of Nature-Man-Society and his honest and sincere application for the improvement of quality of life of the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed people of Chhattisgarh.

4) Apart form his professional qualification he can also be addressed as a philanthropist for his role in setting up Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha’s Shaheed Hospital, besides Dr. Sen along with his wife Ilina Sen is also the founder of “Rupantar” a non-governmental organization which trains and monitors the activities of community health workers. Frontline activities of this NGO (Non governmental organization) include campaign against alcohol, curbing violence against women and to promote food security.

Dr Binayak Sen contribution towards the society is innumerable and his works has also attained him an international recognition as mentioned above. However on 14^th May 2007; he was detained by the Chhattisgarh police under the provisions of Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA) and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, it means arrest without any FIR(First Information Report) or Charge sheet, just on the grounds of suspicion Dr Sen has been detained for the past two years.

The Story

Dr .Binayak Sen.’s arrest came to picture after he drew a nation wide attention over the killing of 12 innocent in a fake encounter of tribal people in Santoshpur, by a Chhattisgarh state government backed organization called “Salwa Judam”. Once the report of these mass killing was made public by media, The Director General of Police in Chhattisgarh ordered a police probe and the autopsy report also concluded that the victims were shot at close range on head and waist while some others were hacked to death. Even the police department stated “It’s certain that some police personnel crossed the limits and killed innocent villagers branding them as Maoist militants … Now the government has to decide whether the cops involved in killings should be arrested or not.”

 

 “Salwa Judam” is an unorganized, informally raised organization which comprises of ordinary citizens and regular policemen to combat the naxal force in the state of Chhattisgarh. “Salwa Judam” just like any other people’s movement started to react to the naxal forces with combat supporting their cause was the state government who provided the members of “Salwa Judam” with arms and ammunition. But soon the Chhattisgarh state government started using “Salwa Judam” to fulfill their political ambitions against their rivals (just like a bank hiring recovery agents or a politician hiring goons during election). Soon “Salwa Judam” became a terror agent of the state; it started operating for its political bosses, time and again making mockery of human rights and violating the provisions of the law. It even went to the extent of silencing and targeting human rights workers of the state one such being Dr. Binayak Sen., who is the secretary of PUCL for the Chhattisgarh (People’s Union for Civil Liberties) and also the vice president of PUCL, India.

 

Prior to this incident several complaints were made against “Salwa Judam” by human rights organization and other civic bodies to the Union government and in response to it several committees submitted their report of the evaluation of the state.

 

Supreme Court of India bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice Aftab Alam declared On 31 March 2008: “The allegation is that the state is arming private persons. You can deploy as many police personnel or armed forces to tackle the menace. But, if private persons, so armed by the state government, kill other persons, then the state is also liable to be prosecuted for abetting murder.”

 

The Report of an Expert Group to the Government of India’s Planning Commission stated on 1 May 2008 said: “Encouragement of vigilante groups such as Salwa Judum and herding of hapless tribals in make-shift camps with dismal living conditions, removed from their habitat and deprived of livelihood as a strategy to counter the influence of the radical left is not desirable. It delegitimizes politics, dehumanizes people, degenerates those engaged in their ‘security’, and above all represents abdication of the State itself. It should be undone immediately

But the Chhattisgarh Home Minister Ramvichar Netam in response to this incident made an inhumane statement that “The government will not arrest the policemen involved in the killings,”. However it was a well known fact that the entire state machinery was shaken by this incident, so they decided to punish Dr .Binayak Sen. by framing him on the chargers of absconding despite the well known fact that he was on a month long planned vacation with his family. Secondly after his arrest he was also charged for being a bridge of communication for a naxalite Narayan Sanyal, who is detained in Raipur Jail. And in order to see to it that Dr .Sen. does not get to do sentence easy they decided to take him to book him under Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA) and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967.

From the initial days of trial it was very clear Dr. Binayak Sen. was innocent, moreover there were sufficient evidence to prove that Dr. Sen.’s had made vacation plans with his family months ago. As for the meeting with naxalite Narayan Sanyal in Raipur jail is concerned it was permitted by Deputy Superintendent of police for medical examination and it took place under the supervision of jail authorities. However under the provisions of (CSPSA) and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 the government could detain any suspects to without any time no bound restrictions, or do they have to follow any conventional law proceeding or do they have any obligation to enshrine the convicts with their legal rights.

Since he was arrested under the provision of (CSPSA), Dr. Sen. was not even presented with FIR (First Information Report) or Charge-sheet against him.Since the court proceeding began on May 18, 2007, Dr. Sen. made several appearances at the court and simultaneously the police conducted as many raids in his home and also took possession of the hard-disk his computer, but the authorities couldn’t gather any evidence. They started questioning everyone in his friends and family circle However due to the special provisions under CSPSA, Dr Sen. was not released due to lack of evidence.

Dr .Sen. was nearing his 60^th birthday and his health condition in the jail premises was worsening for more than once Dr Sen. was held in isolation in pretext of his own security concerns, by the jail authorities.

All over the world a moment had begun several voluntary and civil rights organizations had taken the arrest of Dr. Sen. as an open violation of civil rights and liberties by Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Several campaigns had started pursuing the release of Dr. Sen.; the Chhattisgarh government faced major embarrassment for keeping a eminent personality of Human Rights in custody without any charges.

 

 Immediately after the arrest several organizations including Amnesty international gave a call to Chhattisgarh government for the immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen., unless a recognized crime is charged against him.

 

 In Mangalore exactly after 2 years several associations united gathered a protest at the D.C’s office, On 14 May, 2009 and also dispatched a petition to her Excellency the President of India for immediate release Dr. Binayak Sen.

 

Finally on 25^th may, 2009, the Supreme Court despite the accusation made by the prosecution all over the years decided to grant bail to Dr. Binayak Sen.They did not even allow senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi, to even justify as to why the prosecution feel that the person in question should not be granted bail.

 

Many of us might have witnessed several of such cases in which people have been falsely accused of and yet they are made to pay for it. Please correct me if I am wrong but Indian jails have witnessed several unlawful arrest and detention against what they are actually built for right from the Indian freedom movement and post independence. I have quoted this incident as all of us might have heard of this case. In-spite of calling ourselves civilized and showing it in our constitution such incidents occur every now and again just to remind us perhaps of much we are vulnerable to the system called society which we have created ourselves. Today the state can go to any extent to silence a voice of the people who have brought them to power, I have addressed this particular issue and I won’t be a bit surprised if for the very next moment I thrown in jail.

As a conclusion I would love to thank all the people who have quit being a silent spectator of society and have realized that even they are a part of it too.

Need of regulatory authority for Real-estate in India?

Introduction

The major reason for the failure of US government in containing the spread of Subprime crisis was the absence of a regulatory authority, which could have made a systematic study of real-estate fundamentals and thereby could have possibly assisted in the recovery of the entire economy by providing inputs.

 

Today the entire world has seen the impact that one nation can have over the others and despite the collapse and recovery of global markets, every nation in its best interest is putting in consistent effort to recover the depression in the economy.

 

In India RBI for Banking, IRDA for insurance, NABARD for agriculture, SEBI for stock market, UGC for education, TRAI for telecommunication or any other sector which is open for business, Government agencies like the above mentioned have played an important role over the years in setting up the fundamental rules for successful functioning of these businesses while protecting the consumer interest of the people. However there are still many major sectors, in which the government intervention is felt, needed, debated, discussed but still never implemented especially in the case of real-estates.

 

Cutting the long story the government must pay an immediate attention in stabilizing real estate sector through a formation of a regulatory authority that can be a competent body to control and regulate the real-estate related concerns like taming the prices, discouraging monopoly and other unfair practices in business.

The private players in the real-estate in order to fill their kitty are elevating the price of real-estate properties to sky-high in the name of investment, making it impossible even for a common man or even an institution to afford for a dream property without depending on the cash lending institution like banks and others.

 

 

“Subprime Crisis in the case scenario in India”

 

Though the economic analysts are of the view that the global depression of 2007 will have a lesser impact on Indian economy, with all due respect I would defer from being so optimistic as the possibility of private companies (one of the major employers) resorting to job-cuts is still a very much a possibilities in India, if not a reality.

Most of the pillar industries and others in India are very much dependant of foreign collaboration and FII or other international investment. So if foreign investors pull out with their investment from India, the Indian companies might have to resort to job cuts to reduce expenditure. Job cuts will raise the number unemployed individuals in the country who may eventually turn defaulters towards the banks; more over this will also see an impact on DDI (Domestic direct investment).

The banks with little option may have to resort to repossession of properties from their clientele for default in payment and this practice may extend all over the nation (on case to case basis). When people are not interested in real-estate possessions it will bring the property prices to a rock bottom or being optimistic to their fundamentals. In any case the economy of the entire nation will feel the crunch as land is an essential and heavily invested factor of production.

 

Significance of a Regulatory authority in Real- Estate Sector

 

• A regulatory authority can either be government represented body like the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) or Independent body like the AMFI (Association of mutual funds in India). 

 

• Irrespective of any structure the organization must be empowered to outline a framework and structure to its members.

 

• It must also educate its members as well as the common man in a proper manner to take an informed decision.

 

• The regulated body must also be able to impose sanctions on a member for non-compliance to its rules.

 

• It must also be able to keep the price of the properties at constant and fundamental values. Recognition must be giving for the price range fixed by this regulatory body, so that the competition and competency is not affected at the same time speculation on real-estate deals is averted.

 

• Mandatory eligibility criteria must introduced at entry level so that land sharks and land grabbers along with opportunistic traders have less scope for creating unwarranted speculation in the real-estate sector.

 

• It can also function as an advisory council for the governments both at state and central level assisting them in the formulation of economic policy.

 

• Just like any other regulatory body it must encourage, entice and affiliate its member for following the best business practices in the industry.

 

• The Body must function on par at corporate-levels and must professionally its operations.

 

• Over a period of time it can also undertake studies with its international counterparts so that the bar of standard can also be raised at the same time this regulatory body gets a world over recognition.

 

 

Impact and Conclusion

  

Despite of the corporate existence in the country, real-estate still is among the unorganized sector due to the absence of a code of conduct in the business. Organized business sectors provide transparency in business transaction as there is a systematic procedure for dealing at every phase; hence there is a less scope for illegal operations to take place. But the realtor price has sky rocked due to the loophole in the systems; moreover every other person involved in illegal or anti-national practice invests a great deal of “Black money” in properties as it is regarded as a “Blanket investment”. Institutional involvement in asset misappropriation was also seen in the case of former Satyam Chief Ramalinga Raju’s account. Such kind of investment goes unnoticed by the government authorities while scrutinizing an individual, group or an institutional account because of manipulative paperwork’s. But a ordered regulatory system can easily fill all such kind of escape routes for the undesirable transactions.

 

Realtor has become a safe haven for the presence of “Land grabbers” or “Land Sharks” who form an unconventional medium between the buyers and seller. These anti social elements can be totally erased from the realtor system due to assessment and accountability from the regulated body.

 

The implementation of this system can impact the overall economic system as well, on one hand the industries can retain their profit margin regardless of reducing the cost of production, and on the other the consumers will have a less burden of inflation as a result of cheaper commodities.

 

If and when a regulatory body for real estate comes into existence, Indian economy can have a faster revival since the price of the real-estate and infrastructure directly corresponds with the cost of the output. Further when the price of the land comes back to the fundamental levels it will also boost the industrial expansion and provide alternate job-opportunities for common man.

Back to School

Hi people after a long time I got sometime to tap something on my laptop and again I hope to maintain this in a constant flow. By the way I have decided to continue my studies, as felt that study leads to formation of a character of a person!!!! Ha Ha Ha ……..Okay you guys guessed it right I am kidding!!! Actually I was fired from my job because recession struck, and I didn’t have many options. So for the next two years I have decided to do pursue (MCMS) Masters in Communication and Media Studies.Time can remember, I have been desperately trying running away from studies or anything related to it, but every time I end up seeing it right next to me. Same thing happened this time also; I thought after graduation I will find a job or raise a big business or something but again I ended up in the four walls.All my classmates are right now doing their 2nd year in master’s course in whatever blah blah stream in the same college, so it seemed quite an embarrassing. But when I called up some of my friends (since I was a little fickle) to know what they taught about my decision, instantaneously almost everybody supported and encouraged me.On the First day I found it quite odd looking at my own classmates in senior section while I was sitting with my juniors (I felt like I had flunked or something). Even most of my teachers were quite surprised by my judgment but by the end of the day everybody accepted me.I almost got frustrated sitting on the first day of my lecture as I was not used to it for about a year. But the lectures were quite interesting and my classmates were a wonderful pack to have as friends. It’s almost a week since I knew them and we all got along very well… By the way there are thirteen of us as of now – Nagraj, Kimberly, Hari Govind, Deepa, Crystal, Madhu, Almas, Fr. Prem Lal, Wilma, Namratha, Aditya Bhat. All are guys are just great………. I will tell you more about these tomorrow as of now got some assignment which Fr. Richie and Sr. Clara gave…By gotta go

My MCMS Family

It’s almost two weeks after the classes have begun and the rapport among the 1st year MCMS has grown into is enormous, it’s almost like a family now. The best part of being with these people is that everyone is like minded at certain level.

As of now assignments are increasing at a moderate phase, but everyone is beginning to have a feel of it. But since all of us have taken up mass communication by choice, the pressure is quite positive.

 

By the way our seniors have stuck up a notice on our class wall with an invitation for a “Fresher’s Day” or “Ice Breaking”seems to be good, but “YE BAAT KUCH HAZAM NAHI HUI” Why would seniors would hold a party for us without any reason…..GENEROSITY YOU SAY!!! I doubt, any way I will right about it once it is over.

 

 

 

Badly trying to reduce my weight to 70 kg or so…. but I am addicting to eating, so kind of in a helpless position

 

 

 

Apart from college to home and the other way I have started going to a gym hope I can build up some “DOLE SHOLAY” by the end of this year.

 

 

 

 

 As of this week Sister Celine has taught a lot of concept in terms of editorial column and as far as I am concerned I have already published it in my mind with a flag and ear panel.

 

I feel the concept of students taking the class presentation has got a tremendous boost in Fr. Richie’s session as our communication and public speaking skills.

 

I am supposed to give a presentation on “Constitution of India” somewhere next week in Kannadi Sir’s class, let us hope I do well.

 

Tomorrow as it is Sunday I will be hanging out with my friends, as for tonight I will be eating a lot of food and get up late tomorrow morning.

 

OK Bhat anna has already brought food so I gotta go now…..good night for this weekend.

Life at its best……

Hey guys once again it was a long two week sorry I could not update my blog for a long time as I was a little engrossed in something or the other. By the way our fresher’s party on Saturday was really great actually it was supposed to be for practicals but then teachers let us take the day off.The seniors had a huge package of entertainment stored for us with dance music mimics food as usual embarrassing moments and many interactive sessions. Plus an oath of loyalty towards our seniors which we repeated after a little murmur. Anyway we all had a fun time together with our seniors and it all ended well.

By the same Saturday after the Fresher’s party I along with some of my friends went to sultan battery for an outreach expedition. But I was more interested in taking pictures of that beautiful battery and its surroundings; I went along with Kimberly, Deepa, Crystal, Wilma.

 

Since the weekend was a busy business hour for the people in the boating and fisheries centre they were still shifting the boats to the harbor…

Wow now that seems to be a tiresome job but they seemed to be doing it in an ease.

 

The following week we had a huge work load waiting for us, we had to bring out our monthly magazine on time plus couple of more class presentations of 1000 words each and many more still pending as I speak….

 By the way on Saturday I don’t know what was I thinking maybe it’s because of the whole hype surrounding this Harry potter and the something something that I finally decided to watch it…. I went to the multiplex directly to watch the 6^th part of the movie without seeing the previous ones; and it was there for the first time I felt like I was an illiterate bugger. I assumed the movie was for children’s movie, but the names of the characters are so complicated that I could not pronounce or recollect even one without stammering.

More over I could really not make sense of what they were speaking off it was out of he world. I asked a person sitting next to me for a clarification about the storyline and she told me to refer the 3^rd 4^th and 2^nd chapter to understand it. As a beginner I was still trying to figure out who the main character of the movie… Harry or Flying Broom, Villain “Valdemurthy”or the school, the wand or some pot.

It seemed that the movie was more of a reference story than an individual chapter, I hanged on till 5 minutes after the interval, and then all I could recollect was the usher waking me up at the end. But with all due respect for the movie and its related, everybody else in the theatre seemed to like the way the story was carried out. Except for me who had to drive all the way back home at the early morning of 01.30 A.M. on Saturday.

But with such a huge devoted fan following I guess the movie must be a Huge Blockbuster and I must do my homework to watch the entire series.Yesterday night after I slept, the Harry Potter hangover must have affected me; I felt I saw the villain of the movie “Valdemurthy” getting a nose job done.

As of now I am trying to look into of what this socializing forum called Twitter is all about sp slowly trying to get to know more about it. That does all for now; see you next weekend guys…..

Happy friendships day to all of you…………………

Mumbai Meri Jaan…..

                           Hi people…. I just reached Mumbai for a “Peoples Audit of SEZ IN Maharastra”, organized by TATA INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, Mumbai.  It was an interesting one and a half days of journey from Mangalore, which started when we left Mangalore, yesterday afternoon 13/09/2009 at 12.50pm and reached today morning at 07.00pm in Mumbai. When me says “I” it means Fr.Vinod, Jayanth Tulasi and obviously me – Gatty.

                         This visit is very special to me as it is my 10^th year since I visited Mumbai last-time in 1999.

                            I guess this is “my” first representation of a Civic-conscience body of “Citizens Forum of Mangalore” at National level meet on “Peoples Audit of SEZ IN Maharastra” and the key word for me to keep in mind is “responsibility” that is entrusted upon me by the “forum” while assigning me the task of being a “Observer” of Peoples Audit of SEZ IN Maharastra, which will be conducted on September 15,2009 at Div Village, Raigad. So as you have guessed it well have plenty of time for “SERIOUS REFLECTION OF THOUGHTS on SEZ” once the session begins tomorrow.

                             Today I would just like to say that the journey from Mangalore to Mumbai was pretty much a new experience, I made couple of new friends from different walks of life one, okay let me give you an introduction.

The Group

1)      Mr. Jayanth- He is a Civil-engineer by profession and involved in the construction business alongside his father and Uncle, yet he is one of the foremost people who is environment concerned. Jayanth is 25 year old, so don’t assume that he is very old man when I add the title “MR”.

 

2)      Fr. Vinod, he is a priest from “Capuchin” group of the Christian community, he is native of Karkala and he is 39 yrs of age (with reference to his train ticket). Seems to me like Fr. Vinod is a man with a mission of doing something good to the community which he hails and adores so much.

 

3)      Tulasi, she is a student of Mangala nursing in Mangalore, she has almost a patriot when it comes to supporting a green revolutionary cause.

 

The Journey

                             So as you can see people from different walks of like, as for me, I am a student of Masters of Mass communication and Media studies, St. Aloysius College, who just finished his assignment on “SPIRAL THEORY OF SILENCE” and “RILEY AND RILEY” for Rev.Fr. Dr Richard Rego SJ’s, class (wow man… his titles are longer than his name!!! What say), and rush to catch his train in Mangalore central at 13.00pm.

                           As I was saying it much pretty much a silent journey all through out, with some bits and pieces of information from Fr.Vinod on green movement and the plight of farmers in the MSEZ(Mangalore Special Economic Zone) occupied permude, Mangalore.

Beauty of the country side

                          The doorway of the train-bogie was always occupied by some or the other, “even mera number aaya” and I made the best of it. It seems that the Indian railway passes only through the stretch of the countryside filled with deep green surroundings which we rarely get to witness otherwise.

                          As we traveled through the rough green fields out of the several sightings and sounds among them were.

1)      Passing through Karwar – I saw a small kid (approx 2 year old )playing with some pebbles all by himself in almost the middle of a huge ground, as big as Nehru maidan of Mangalore (for those of you who do not know what is Nehru maidan ? ….  visit Mangalore).

2)      A guy who looked very poor man shabbily dressed was eating cashews as though it were rice … I made a wild guess of which “world” the train was passing through, and guessed it right, the train was passing through “the State of Goa”. 

The Passengers

                         While the other entire passengers in the train including me were putting up best of behavior as through we were sitting for an interview or something….. A tiny-tot of 8 months (who was just sitting in our front row) through her playful-act was having fun in every possible way. She was lost in her own world playing with her toy-dog “Pluto” and one more thing or a toy or a doll, which must have had happened to be in her hand at a very bad mood, because the hands were missing, head was inverted, face was coloured with lipstick, almost bald. Yet as of now the child was having its own gala-time.

Rich Beggar

                         It was almost impossible for me to have a coffee at 18.00pm; “intelligently me” carried only one note of 500 denominations and had no change. The Tea-vendors gave me a strange look at my offer to buy tea with 500 rupees note. I felt like a “Rich beggar” and I wouldn’t have minded buying tea for all the passengers as well for a single cup of tea. Thankfully one of the ticket collectors directed me to “Pantry Manger” to tender change. The Pantry manger with a suspicious glance asked “Is that is an original 500 note?” I swear even now I don’t know how to answer that question, I wondered for a while whether it was a code or something? I didn’t know or was the pantry manger just testing a patience of a guy who just wants only ONE SINGLE CUP OF TEA, I just gave a grin and left. After dinner at 20.00 we slept for the day.

Celebrity Welcome

                       Today morning as we came out of the Lokamanya Tilak railway station, Mumbai, I felt like a celebrity, (Sharukh Khan might have complained about it but I just loved the attention my presence created) no it was not for my autograph, but scores of paparazzi of Taxi driver and autowallas blocked our way and offered to give us a drop to our destination.

The Bargain Raja

                     Finally my fellows and I had a brain storm of how to reach out destination at least expense (bargain was not because we were short of money but we wanted to make the most of it) and the sacred task of bargaining was directed to Mr.Jayath, who successfully bargained and convinced an auto driver to get his fare down from Rs 160 to just 80 Rs.

The Land of Dreams

                    On the way to TISS, the auto-driver Zakir, chit- chatted on things like compulsion of helmet in Mumbai, the benefits of concrete chips and their replacements on main road etc.

                   It was a very early morning scene; Mumbai just seemed to be coming to life. Parents were escorting their children’s to school, some senior citizens walking with their highbred pets, a woman was nearly fighting with a push cart vegetable vendor while bargaining, Mumbai City workers were empting the waste bins, some high school boys were passing comments on the passerby’s at the bus stops and so on.

                  It was nice to finally experience the city of which I have heard so much grow like a small baby in the early morning hours of Monday; I still wonder why I couldn’t the camera of Danny Boyle capture the real life of this City.

                    We finally reached the TISS (Tata Institute of Social science) at Chembur around 8.00am (20 minutes drive from Station) and as we reached “the Mumbaian rain” welcomed us with a lovely drizzle.

 

                   The TISS seems to be a huge campus with greenery almost everywhere; I do not know the total area it covers but the campus is huge. Our service apartment was three minute walk from the main entry. It was fabulous fully furnished apartment, air-conditioned, broadband enabled with a personal computing and all the basic amenities of home cum office with food provided by the mess. Wow now this is the kind of working environment I always expected.

 

 

Fine guys that’s it for today…. I got to freshen up now and sleep for some time, the train travel was not sufficient for a good sleep (guess they must apply couple of more suspensions on the wheels), moreover tomorrow is the big day so I need to do some homework and prior setups.

 

Take Care… Chaos…and support “Mangalore Citizens Forum” to conserve Green Kudla………………..

MUMBAI-TISS-SEZ-FRIENDS-HOME

Hi people… this is write-up is about my stay in Mumbai, so start reading if only if you can complete it. I guess its lengthy about four and a half page.

 

Venturing Mumbai

Just when I thought we had a whole mid morning to take a nap, we had a call Shivam, the event coordinator of Public audit of Maharashtra on behalf of TISS, first he enquired about the journey and then he told us that if need be he would need some assistance in setting up the Public Audit.

 

Evening after some light snack I and Jayanth ventured out to Mumbai city, for beginners the city is quite “wow” for expression with broad roads and huge infrastructure for its growing population, while maintaining its ecological balance. In fact I was very much surprised to see farm cultivation in the heart of the city.

 

Juhu Gola

 

In Mumbai there is a system of bus pass in which you pay a lump sum of Rs 25 take any number of city bus for the one day. We travelled from Chembur to Bandra and a connecting bus to Juhu Chowpaty.

 

Juhu chowpaty is a crowded place even on weekdays with families, tourists and all sorts of petty vendors loitering in the beach premises. One of the vendors was selling “crushed ice” thing called GOLA, it was quite simple with crushed ice and a dash of flavored syrup. With so many colours I could not make up my mind on deciding the flavour. So the vendor suggested me that “KALAKHATTA” was his master piece. “KALAKHATTA” had a unique tangy flavour moreover topped with a pinch of chat masala the flavor despite of crossover blended perfectly well with one another. Every now and then I was choking in between my “GOLA GRUB” but I guess that was worth tasting the cool tit-bit.

 

From Juhu beach I was able to take some pictures of worli-bandra sea link using my 70mm-300mm telescopic lens. But photography was interrupted by a security guard of some private hotel (which was on the shore of the Juhu Beach) who authoritatively asked me not to take pictures of the beach. I wanted to protest on his demand but then I realized “Mala Marati bolayla yeth nahin” but anyway I took a couple of more pictures before leaving the sweet spot.

 

After visiting Juhu Beach we visited ISKON temple which again seemed to be a favorite stops to all Mumbaikars, coincidently we visited the temple during darshan hours. So we were able to catch a glimpse the beautiful architectural sculpture of Shree Krishna and Radha. By the time we left from ISKON, it almost late evening 8.00AM, so we took a direct bus from Juhu to TISS.

 

Dinner Hall

 

At TISS we had a huge dinner platter waiting for us. Yum, I envy my friends at TISS who get to eat all those goodies 4 times a day. There was salad, chapathi, dal, rice, curds, some sweet like half Rasogulla and half topping of fresh-cream with cherry dipped in the fresh sugar concentrate. The platter was so good that I had to take second serving of some of those items, Kudos to TISS canteen alias DH alias Dinning Hall.

 

Public Audit Maharashtra

 

The next day, morning 15 September at the TISS campus entrance a bus was waiting to for us. Around 50 passengers’, including the staff, students, left the campus at around 9.00am and after covering approximately 120 kilometers from Chembur and we reached Div Village, panvel taluka, Maharashtra at around 11.00 AM.

 

Raigad has been on the SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE scanners of the multinational corporates for quite some time. This region is both the food bowl as well as the life line of thousands of farmers living in this region. Almost 22 villages will be adversely if these fertile lands are converted for commercial purpose and in the same process the farmers will be at the receiving end of this ruthless exploitation.

 

So at least in this region the farmers are well aware of their fundamental rights and have decided not to depart from their motherland without agitation. So the farmers have strongly condemned and agitated against the government measure for notifying their prosperous land for SEZ.  

 

The unanimous fight against SEZ by the farmers was clearly seen throughout the Public-Audit all day long, eminent panelist like Prabash Joshi, E.A.S. Sarma, Aruna Roy and several were present to listen to more than 20 testimonials of farmers, fishermen who felt that their concerns were totally ignored by the government. While SEZ has been empowered with unfair instruments like Tax- free period, no upper limit or ceiling for land holding which gave the power to the companies to kill the cottage industry..

 

In my opinion SEZ is a measure adopted by a government which is trying to shed away from its responsibilities towards its people, by empowering multinational companies to pour money to the region, while the government only takes the credit of the developmental work its administration. The absence SEZ promoters at the Public audit of Maharashtra provided ample proof to the fact that these corporates are only interested in procuring best returns for their investment regardless of the number of lives destroyed in the process and how could any government support such legislations which is anti-people’s consent.

 

The arbitrariness of the government made me think how vulnerable our lives are in our own country. The principles of SEZ seemed to be on par with that of the draconian laws of the “BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY RAAJ” in which the private companies were at the liberty to dispose the entire nation as per their wish and fancies while safe guarding their commercial interest (perhaps the only difference is in those days internal feuds of the “the Indian Kings” was responsible for the downfall of our country and today it is the ministers of different political parties).

 

More over it is alarming to know that unlike constitution limitation set for land ownership by individuals or institution SEZ has no fixed “upper limit” for its land procurement. It means that in the near future SEZ can expand its facilities at unlimited proportion so much so that even the elected representatives may be a puppet in the hand of these economically secure corporations.

 

 

Bhavneet Kaur – LOL girl

It was almost 6.00 pm the Public Audit was finally over; we were waiting for other to assemble near the registration counter which by now was nothing more dismantled setup of a desk and a chair. Suddenly out of nowhere a girl introducing herself as Bhavneet Kaur a resident of Punjab requested for a pen and a paper from my friend Jayanth. She further bothered to explain that all these involvements in SEZ activity had tickled some thought in her mind which she wanted to pen down. In her own words “it is not a poem but just a vent out of feelings on paper” (heavy words…isn’t it?). Once she got hold of pen and paper she somehow managed to sit on “former registration counter” and wrote for about 20 minutes (By the way I later recollected that, this was the same girl who looked at me angrily while I was shooting the Public audit).

 

As we returned from Raigad, the TISS group was totally exhausted due to their 100% involvement in the public audit process. But there was no end to their spirits all through the way back to TISS we all started singing slogans of ANTI-SEZ campaign in the bus.

 

Even we got pulled into the mood and there was this strong rapport which kept on growing amongst us it was strange, the strangers from different part of India like DELHI, KARNATAKA, TAMILNADU, MUMBAI, PUNJAB who barely knew each others few hours ago singing along in the same tune with a gusto spirit. It seemed the youth of the country had finally heard itself in the call of duty.

 

Meet the Junoon Group of TISS

 The participants of Public Audit were the last batch of hungry people for the day at the DINNING HALL of TISS campus. This small bunch of people brought the entire isolated mess hall to life.

 

Bhavneet Kaur (that poet/ writer I was speaking about with a sophisticated Samsung mobile phone) joined us for dinner along with her friend Charanya. Now this is a Bangalorean is very photo conscience. Despite of several tries and coaxing we were not able to get a proper photograph of Charanya (which makes me wonder how she gets her Identity card done).

 

About 20 minutes later their entire gang came to the DH, (please forgive me for not recollecting their names), but I can tell the sequence of arrival….. first a girl (boy cut hair… I guess) in green dress came in with I-pod on her ears, then a Mangalorean guy with beard and moustache, then came another guy with a black coloured t-shirt and a French beard connected to side-Locke, then one more girl with black t-shirt embraced all her friends, then again a girl who claimed to have consumed “RED BULL” said a loud hi to all her friends.

 

It was such a jolly-good group (touch wood), everyone was so happy having one another. Though their arrival was spontaneous they had a perfect timing of arrival for the song “hai junoon” from the movie New York (Therefore the name “Junoon group”). After about an hour and a half all of us retreated to our rooms. As I walked towards my room I realized that next day marked our departure from TISS campus and I might really miss this bunch of friends.

 

Last day at TISS

The next day I got up quite late at 06.15A.M (I can’t sleep after 6.00 clock ever since I have joined NCC). Anyways I tried making a black tea which proved disastrous so I decided to finish it off in a gulp (the moral of the story never try to drink liquid which is at a boiling temperature).

 

After breakfast at 8.00pm we had an evaluation of the SEZ Raigad. During the closure of the meeting Vinay, my colleague informed me that we better hurry up as Matsyaganda express was leaving at 2.05pm but I argued that the departure was at 2.50PM. But the tone of confidence of Vivek’s voice made me a little nervous. So I gobbled up all the yummy food like kebab, Rasogulla, payasam, dal, roti, salad (I guess the Indian thali had turned must have turned into a continental dish) and made a dash to my room only to find that vinay was right. Me, Jayanth and Tulasi raced to catch an auto at 01.35 PM. In a hurry I met only Bhavneet Kaur and told bye to her in a hurry.

 

F1 in Mumbai

The autowala understanding our situation drew swiftly to Kurla, but instead of Kurla terminal he dropped us at Kurla local. And hence we gave up the hope of catching the train, suddenly this driver called Hemanth overheard our conversation and immediately asked us to hop his auto we just followed his instruction blindly. He drove the auto with full throttle to kurla terminal and got us on time to the station and guided us to the platform.

 

It was 02.06pm we somehow managed to enter our bogie(the chase sequence was not the one like DDLJ, but the one like MARTIX) and started gasping for breath and LOL. It was a great relief with a sense of achievement. The journey back in train was as usual with so many Mangalorean speaking Tulu and some other familiar Mangalorean languages.  While on train I most of the time hanging along the footboard (I cannot sit at any place for more than two hours at a stretch).

 

There was this old gentleman sitting on the first row of the bogie with his wife (seemed they were irritated to see me standing on the footboard). Whenever I turned back I caught the old fellow staring at me. Least I wanted to hear advice from anybody so I continued ignoring the couple an enjoyed the dark beauty of night. We came across several tunnels some measuring as long as 1800 meters.

 

At some junction because of a Jayanth’s proactive (not needed) comments some enuches made easy 10 bucks which I had pay up because he didn’t have change(it always happens he does mistake and I pay for it “literally”).

 

In Maharashtra the planes fly almost frequently people don’t even bother to give it a glance, but I still look up everyone of it (almost mechanically but I tried to avoid it because I didn’t want to look like an idiot).

 

For dinner as we had no other option we had to settle for Vada pav (truly mumbian style) but still I was tempted to go to the TISS canteen. After some more time everyone fell asleep as I did not have any book to read by, I decided to listen to “Hai Junoon” from the movie NWEYORK for the 999^th time.

 

The first person to give a warm smile as I got up today morning was the old lady who the previous evening seemed angry with me for standing on the foot-board, I couldn’t figure out anyway I sat with a cup of tea.

 

Old is gold

Sometime later I went over to stand over the footboard, to my surprise I found the old man (who I thought was angry with me standing on the footboard), he was enjoying the breeze passing over his hair (of course whichever was remaining)  giving me a warm smile to me as though to challenging me saying “even I can do it”. I stared at him for some time but he was unshakable with his smile. He was a man approximately 80 year old man as I neared the basin and looked back, the old man’s wife was having a wide baby like smile. The old man stepped back and said “Nimma asthana” means “your place” and later he tapped my back and then he got down in the very next stop.

 

Unfulfilled promises

The rest of the journey was silent as usual and after about couple of more stop the train dragged to a halt in Mangalore central at 9.26am.

Then it struck to me a lot off uncommitted responsibilities I had taken up before leaving to Mumbai

1)      Which including purchasing “Ice peda” for my friends and

2)      Purposely not telling my mother about the travel to Mumbai (you see she has the potential to emotionally blackmail me to stay back in Mangalore) so now that I had come back I need to confess it to her (please suggest me how?).

Darting Doctors …….

Since my birth I have visited hospitals more number of time than the plastic surgery done in Ekta kapoors serials, so I am kind used to the hospital environment of gloom and anxiety.Over the years I have witnessed several technological advancement in the hospital, expect for one thing “the injection”.

It’s like the doctors enjoy darting their patients (to prove that they have earned the degree)and that’s why they use same old fashion for treatment from centuries(I guess). As for me I have been stinged with injection more number of times than Rajnikanth has caught flying bullets with his teeth, as a result I have developed a phobia towards “injection”.

 

Today since it was a holiday for Mahalaya Amavasya, my roommates in the PG had home; even I had nothing much so I decided to visit my parents. But while packing up my stuff my eye fell on a blood donation certificate that I had received for my voluntary contribution.

 Since blood donation centre came on the way to my home I decided to do some social work. But it also meant that I had to face the wrath of syringe, however since i had an acquaintance with the staff of the hospital (who knew about my phobia) I was a little worried about the injection.

 But as I reached the blood donation counter to my surprise all of them were unfamiliar faces. I learnt that the entire batch of staff (who knew me) had been to Chennai for some training or orientation. And tentatively they were replaced by a new batch.Couple of minutes later a nurse politely asked me to fill the form and enter the donation room.

 Later they strapped me with that BP machine and the stethoscope. Expecting to receive some sympathy I told the nurse that I was scared of the shot; so the nurse did as though she completely understood (my fears)and went out, only to get couple of more staff to laugh at me( I mean its quite obvious when a 80 KILO gunny bag comes up with such request, but then I was scared to death). 

 

Just when I thought I would be a laughing stock of the day, an old nurse came to my rescue she ordered all the nurses to leave the room (those nurses were still giggling). And with the same authority she told me not to worry and applied that cleaning spirit on my arms, (that ice cold stuff somehow makes you to anticipate the prick that follows from the needle, i mean why would anyone bother to hurt oneself even while doing a noble charity). But somehow even this time I never felt the prick when the needle was darted into my arms, so everything was well(but belive me anticipation is worser than the pain itself).

 And that’s when I realized that my job was done. Later when I was above to leave, the old nurse gave me two bottles of Mango squashes for recovery(which i collected as a prized possession of an achievment) I guess the second one was to compensate.

It was good to know that all was over by now…………

Okay guys as of now I got to rush to my home so I will chat some more things later. By the way i am also on my way to a hair stylist to get a new look(mirror cracking type).

Mirror Cracking Haircut-Hila ke Rakh de

           Before-  17/09/2009

                                  Vs

              After- 19/09/2009

Work&Roll

Once I was done with the haircut (I really didnt know why I did that to myself), the whole day me along with my classmates were involved in the preparation for the inaugural of SARANG community radio 107.8FM. Me along with my group Sandhya, Aditya, Wilma, Crystal, were busy distributing invitations to several institutions across Mangalore, both educational and media fraternity. 

SARANG community radio is the “brain child” of our HOD Rev. Fr. Dr. Richard Rego: “Infant” of 2^nd year MCMS and (adopted child) of 1^st year MCMS (Master of Mass communication and Media studies).

                           

For years Rev. Fr. Dr. Richard Rego has invested a great deal of time to bring SARANG community radio to the people and provide platform both for students as well as the localities. Since the trial transmission began on June 24^th 2009 it’s almost three months wait till 23^rd September 2009, when the broadcast will be officially inaugurated(congrats to you Fr. Richard on your success).

 

It was almost 2.55PM; when we finally finished distributing all the invites. Later in the evening I started watching Karnataka Premier League since Mangalore united had a match due to play. Despite the best effort the team could not go ahead in the series (but their efforts are well appreciated….Kudos Mangalore United).

 

 I had plans to watch the movie “Kaminey” in the big screen today evening, but some of my room mates (Kamineys) who knew my desperation to watch the movie, wrote its entire story in my blog as a “anonymous” comment and he had withheld the “title” of the movie till the end(I deleted that piece). But the whole point of going to the theatre had gone down the drain.

 

                             

So I finally decided to go the mall (my friends had gone to their native due to holidays) to have a hot sip of “Tropical Green” and one “Chocó Truffle”.

Old Indian Commercials

                            

      

                                           Previous night i had a dream of that old “Hamara bajaj” advertisements, so I did some exhaustive research (yeah right….) on some old Indian ads and finally was able compile this 25 pack ads (not sharukh’s “abs”) which brought my childhood memories back to my life. So go ahead check it out and see if you too can become the victims of  nostalgic moment.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5W_i8oa9cE (Dairy milk)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbiLtYBhf-I&feature=related (Dairy milk- Very romanic and that girl dancing is Funny)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ilOLgA-Oo&feature=PlayList&p=99E95AB324C1E79F&index=20 (Dairy milk – Very Very Romantic)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzHLL2ZWAn0 (titan- Minisha Lamba (small girl in purple))

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgUJP6xGHOs&feature=related (Nescafe)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUgr4mVris&feature=related (Titan Advertisement – Before Aishwaria rai became Miss world )

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knZpch5N30Y&feature=related (Gold spot)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odJC-JC8rLg&feature=related (Chal mere Luna)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKFt2MUph4w&feature=related (National Anthem)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIsG2CNy5IM&NR=1(Asian Paints)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMLhuH_g_gU&feature=related (Wow geat complitations of ads of 80′s and 90′s)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlnesiouUK4&feature=related (Indian Army)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osuAI4Kj3lo (Ercisson mobile)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WKtsoQWm-0&feature=related (I love you Rasna)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BthAbD6OlM (Monte Carlo – Nothings gonna change my love)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSqnxoHyMF0&feature=PlayList&p=80169FA75E5ACCF6&index=10 (Lijjat Papad)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukqIgpcKSO8&NR=1 (Doordarshan)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEV8MWd1p3M&feature=PlayList&p=80169FA75E5ACCF6&index=2 (Hamara Bajaj)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9-1XD9VvX4&feature=related (Lyril)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D4PBN0OzuE&feature=related (Parle-G)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZVicxLnn6Y&feature=related (Aajantha – Old Granny)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbV5Y5KJCUs&NR=1 (Dhara-Jalebi)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9koiLyUQFI&feature=related (Malgudi Days)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9hglv3Myhw&feature=related (Jungle Book-Mowgli)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1rNDOdFOYY&feature=related  (Surabhi)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEkf5r7H3HI (Pepsi)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7XZSz_SY_U&feature=related  (Doordarshan)

“A friend dindin is a friend dindin”

For the first time at breakfast I ate few chocolate bars on an empty stomach (stunts tried by a professionals do not try it at home) along with tea. I didn’t seem to have stomach ache or anything as of now (In my home it is a “taboo” to consume sweet early morning). Whatever!!! For a sweet tooth like me it was “bountiful” breakfast.  

First of all I ate chocolate because the ATM machine near the PG was not working and (I had only few change with which I brought tea) the only food I had at my disposal was chocolates which I had brought one per day consumption. But paapi stomach was not satisfied with one of those bars so I had to eat them BAR BAR…at regular intervals till the third chocolate finally brought a fill my stomach.

 

Today is the last day of the 5 day long weekend. It is also a heartbreaking moment for me because for the last couple of days I had a peace of mind staying alone in PG.

But tomorrow onwards things will be back to normal, my roomies will be back (apna Jayedaath ka Hissa maangne…he he… learnt the dialogue from my mom’s favorite “K” serial) from vacation.

 

So things will be sequential: (Note: names of the victims changed or withheld)

1) Roommates will race to make a first appearance in the wash room for their “morning raga”.

 

 

 

2) Trying to sneak another’s ironed shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) My roomy Akilesh will be busy with his mobile trying to patch-up with his girlfriend, who had dumped him for the 2^nd time.

 

 

 

4) Sangmesh will again borrow Rs.20 from Prithvi though he already owes approximately Rs 300.

 

 

5) Another room mate of mine is in the verge of creating history by bagging a hat-rick backlog in forthcoming examination. But never the less they are good souls (after insulting them so much), by today evening every one of them will start down pouring on the room.

 

By the way I just gulped this new drink called “RIO” Karma (Blue Berry and Peach), it’s kind of reddish in shade with a fancy packing. It’s quite pungent (tonic) in taste and people who like energy drinks like Redbull or Energy may like this kind of drink. Since it claimed itself to be just another beverage like the coca-cola I picked it up on the way to the college

 

Whoever said the proverb “A friend dindin is a friend dindin” (sounds like Britannia title chime “tin tin ti tin”) must have stumbled upon those magical mumbles, I  still didn’t figure out its meaning “literally”, despite hearing it from the first standard(please let me know its word to word meaning if you understand). Whatever it means I am forced to follow those principles. So when my friends come today I am supposed to go and pick them up from the station, the last one will be at 11.50PM.

Radio Sarang+His excellency+MCMScians

 

“Ethos” means culture, philosophy or nation, since His Excellency, Governor of Karnataka Hamsaraj.R.Bharadwaj kept on repeating the “Ethos” word several time while advocating the students during the inauguration, it made me curious enough to look out for the meaning.

 

His Excellency

 

Today the St. Aloysius College campus was filled with security personnel’s, canine squad, metal detectors, access badges, and the police band, actually the D-day’s here “Radio Sarang-107.8FM, celebrating colours of life” was inaugurated by His Excellency the governor of Karnataka Hamsaraj.R.Bharadwaj. Honourable minister of Law and Justice Mr. Veerappa Moily and Home minister of Karnataka Dr.V.S.Acharya were present for the occasion.

  

 

Meet my Friend at MCMS

 

Students of Mass communicationand Media Studies

 

 

 

Kudos to MCMS department on the launch of radio Sarang and news broadcast studio, but then this was just the trailer, the real movie begins now, when we have to work day-in&day-out to keep the program schedule filled up. But then this will be a platform for us to fill the gap between our studies and future work environment.

 

It was quite interesting to know that being from a political fraternity; His Excellency was quite casual and versatile in his approach while addressing students. By the time he finished speaking on his concerns over Mass Media and there was a thunderous applause to his statement by the students who were very much thrilled by his broadminded approach towards Press freedom. Since the entire morning was devoted to the formal inauguration of Radio Sarang-107.8FM, nobody was interested in attending any classes in the afternoon.

 

What we didn’t know was that one of the Undergraduate courses had organized an annual feast called musical evening (which confusingly is celebrated in the afternoon). Now this was a sweet surprise to all the lazy buggers like me (who were looking for an excuse to take the day off).

 

Musical evening is a feast where the best singers of our college showcase their skill and entertain the audience; the audience basically comprises the staff & students of Undergraduate and post graduate courses. The audience seemed to be very much involved in the entire process; there was a lot of support and encouragement to the singers as well as some acrobatic dancers.

 

Finally there was Baila…. Baila means nothing but dancing to the Konkani folk songs, however nowadays DJ’S are invited to college who play some hip and happening beats, and this DJ knew his business well.

 

 

By the way the reason for me to end up this page so abruptly is because since yesterdays I am having a bad headache and an irritating cold (walking, jogging, running nose). I am not sure whether I will be going to college today.

 

 

Take care of you health guys……

Chandu’s Chinese Dhaba

From the past two weeks I have been going places, some time sessions or inauguration of a radio centre or sometime just nowhere, however today I had a invite of a different kind. Early morning 7.00AM, Chandu my old friend who owns a CHINESE DHABA by the roadside of Kapikad called me up. I was in a sleepy mood because yesterday night I was watching the movie “Wanted” with my roommates till 01.00AM.

 

I had not been Chandu’s for about three months or something, so I quite surprised to receive his call(Chandu had my number for home delivery of parcels but had never called me till now) so I was still wondering the reason.

 

He told me “Good Morning Harsha sir, I have brought a new tempo and stopped using the old push cart, so please make it for the inauguration today evening”.  

 

I was drowsy but still I was so happy to hear from Chandu, I mean this guy has been working in this area for about 4 years and I was one of his first customers when he started his push cart noodles called “Chinese Dhaba”. I had been a regular visitor to his Dhaaba ever since. It’s not because of the acquaintanceship that I used to visit his place but because of the quality of food he used to prepare. Moreover the price was quite cheap, so when I and my friends were “broke” this was a very was our only fate.

 

Around 7.00pm I visited to his shop (these dhaba’s usually opened up late in the evening to midnight) there he stood the proud owner by his new mini-tempo. The tempo was altered to suit the catering requirement. I was so happy with his success that I embraced him as I entered.

 

I mean this guy had worked all his way up to get till here, so he deserved this moment of glory.  Making money was one thing for this budding entrepreneur but at the same time he involved himself like a professional cook, he even used to share some of his kitchen tips with his loyal customers like me. All these flashbacks made me proud of knowing this guy.

 

His menu was full of variety like soups, Chicken shezwans, veg-sizzlers, noodles and fried rice, chicken garlic, chicken kebab and also Gobi stuffing’s.

 

Anyway for this occasion he served me a bowl of noodle along with different type of curry samples, wow this was really a filling treat. I was quite surprised that Chandu kept his inaugural so fancy, but knowing his public relation I am not surprised to know that had so many devoted customers.

 

I also had a great time listening to the story of this guy who prior starting up his business in Mangalore worked for 12 years in Mumbai. On this particular day he kept the dhaba opened only for 2 hours and only for invitees only.

 

By the time I finished my Chinese diner it was almost 8.30 at night, I congratulated Chandu again before I finally left.  It’s was almost like witnessing the making of a next Dhirubai ambani.

As for me within next 15 minutes I will be reaching PG.

Alls well that ends well….. The Kheer Solution

From the past few days I am not keeping quite well, over and again I was a constant victim of cold, I sometime feel that this cold this is a worst disease of its kind. I mean it not only makes a person sick but also terribly miserable, constantly embarrassed and also severely conscious. Moreover the constant rubbing of that nose makes it chilly red (Naak Katgayi).

 

Anyways I am “good to go” as for now (my hands are free from curfew-ing the nose) therefore I decided to start tapping the keys. However today nothing much is more exciting than watching champions tournaments of India Vs Pakistan, though I am not a cricket freak (given a option I rather watch cartoon to cricket) but this thing is different, its INDIA Vs PAKISTAN (I am having Goosebumps as I speak).

 

 

Just imagine No dossier, No LOC, No diplomacy, Only action (much more than the “ashes” played between England & Australia). The one who wins this takes all the glory…… All the best India.

 

 

 

Yet again my tiny friend from 5^th Standard, Ms. Akansha proves that she is smarter than me, as she goes on explaining me the full form of abbreviation “OMG”(in SMS) which means “Oh my God”. I don’t have any other option but to crib about this fact…. I mean, me doing post graduation and this girl beats me in almost everything be it chess, spell-bee or Antakshari. This girls always keeps me on guard, the very moment I speak some nonsensical, this girl whips me with her “Know-all attitude” (She was such an angel when she was small.

 

Yesterday night one of my roommates brought the movie “Dil Bole – Hadippa”; the movie was okay sort. But the actual fun began as Akilesh (same guy whose girl dumped him) started complaining of stomach upset (whatever that is) and Sangmesh suggested that Kheer was the best remedy to the crisis.

 

Akilesh (the topper of his class) I dunno what he was thinking, but out of desperation he blindly followed those sweet remedy of “Sangmesh” dutifully (he managed to get the Kheer from a nearby hotel) and drank a large portion of it.

 

 

 

The next scene of the Kheer began early today morning, when I woke up for some weird noises from the washroom (u guessed it right). When I asked my friend Pritvi about it (he was already giving me a hilarious facial reaction) he just told “Akilesh” (I guessed rest of the matter) and then burst into laughter. 

 

 

 

Looking at that fellow(Prithvi) even I broke-out laughing, with a brush and paste in my hand I walked up-to Sanghmesh’s(the guy who suggested Kheer in the first place) room, only to find him laughing (in an ultrasonic mode)with his both hands tightly on the stomach. That rascal was struggling to say something but was stammering with laugh. I was almost in tears laughing so much.

 

Suddenly there was a loud bang on the door, it was Akhilesh staring at us angrily, we stopped laughing at that very moment, but then as Akhilesh started swearing and cursing all of us (that guy was really angry) we choked into our laughter marathon again shamelessly.  For every word of his our laughter only got louder so much so that even Akilesh joined us with a smile before he raced back to wash room.

World Health Day in Mangalore

We ran we ran we ran for our heart… this was the way entire Mangalore joined the universal call on the early morning of 27^th day of September at 07.30AM on the occasion of World heart day. This event is successfully hosted by Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore (a unit of Manipal group of education) for the 5^th consecutive year.

 

The marathon had an overwhelming response by hundreds of people from different quarters of Mangalore who ran together for a common cause. The entire event was worthy enough to go on the history books of “TULUNAD”.

  

 

Ms. Vandana Rao, the 1984 Indian representative to the Olympics, was the torch bearer for the event.

The marathon which was flagged-off at KMC Bejai stretched all the way through Lalbagh via PVS circle-bunts hostel till the End point was at KMC Hospital near Jyothi circle.

 

 My original responsibility was to cover the event (which I did) but as I missed my early morning jogging, even I joined the marathon. The distant of the entire event was approximately 3.5 kilometer, seemed like a lengthy stretch, however everyone, be it young or old, couples, friends or just colleagues all seemed to have their share of fun.

 The environment was filled with Gala and celebration; some of participants were walking with a heart shaped balloon, while some serious performers were jogging with a mineral water in hand. There were some other groups who raised slogan to create awareness of heart-care among the common people.

 

Eventually I met one of my old friend and client Dr Suneeth, MD or Medicinae Doctor in Pathology and his wife Dr.Gagan Brar who is also pursuing her MD in Anesthesiology, they were just back from abroad last month.

 

Then there was Mr .Ravi, from the administration division of KMC, Mangalore., who assisted us getting couple of voice bytes to our Community Radio Sarang 107.8FM,  

Oldest and Youngest Participant

 

Several bigwigs of the cities like politicians, sport celebrities, eminent Doctors were also present during the occasion.

Though it was my first time running such a lengthy track I was one of the proud participant who completed the entire track without a break… I would suggest everyone to try to push yourself to a higher limit atleast once, where you can create a niche for you own self-respect (if feels great). After a long time I felt like an accomplishing over myself( the fact is my ego and myself have lot of issue with one another).

That’s it for now guys I need to take some rest right now…. Leg is hurting a lot becuse of the long run.

Japanese Song……very romantic touch

Hi guys just got this Japanese album….Could only read the lyrics…. But the feel is quite romantic.

Felt quite sad after watching this !!!

Delhi se Aya mera Dost….

Hi guy’s Long time now see…. 

 

I have been going through several interesting things in the past few days which kept me engaged from blogging.

 

First of all, my friend from Delhi turned up to Mangalore due to some work she invited me up for an evening coffee the same night she was supposed to leave back to Bangalore on the way to Delhi.

 

 

I had earlier met this girl as a fellow passenger on one of my journey to Chennai couple of months back and we really clicked in our conversation and interests at the very moment. So it was two long years since I had kept any contact with my Delhi friend, so obviously I was very excited to meet.

 

But then I had to be at another very important appointment (actually it was a DJ party for my friends birthday) at 09.30 so I thought I will convey it to my friend as soon as we meet.

 

As usual I forgot to inform her about my prior appointment instead we both started blabbering for about an hour or so I guess, “almost everything under the sun” like politics (corruption and parties), economics (recession and stuff) and our local places of interest. At certain point I even started boasting about my “wonders in the world” and she said “about the planet she had created” and all that.

 

It was almost 9.00pm when I checked my watch (as I ran of topic for discussion), now here I had a huge problem as I have the phobia of initiating “bye” because I find the expression is rude (because the person on the other end may think I am putting an abrupt end). I know it sounds crazy but that’s how it is with me so I started trying to time my “bye” perfectly, but then it never happened, so the conversation (It was very interesting talk I must say)started continuing.

 

I was still trying to figuring out the way to say “bye”, to my friend, but at that moment my brains gave up (it just displayed like multicolor line that usually appears on DOORDARSHAN when there is no transmission).

 

So I was helpless it had already crossed 9.30 pm (as though the party started punctually on time) I had to do something to exit the situation, at sometime I even hinted that I had to go, but then I myself got involved in the discussion and stayed back to argue more.

 

The time went up to 10.30 PM, I thought party must already half over, frankly I was disappointed, but I tried looking through the brighter side (Unsuccessful attempt), which didn’t have sufficient material to pacify. But I guessed I took it quite well (Yeah… after so much whining), I mean its very rare that I have such a long distance friends so I guess it was quite worth the time. So like a noble soul I stayed up till 10.45 PM till the bus came to pick up my friend.

  

On my way back I was drove back to my PG slowly (lifeless) thinking some “garbage”, my room was empty since my roomies had been to the party. I fell on the bed slept for the day.

 

Par Picture Abhi Bakhi hai mere dost

 

Approximately after 15 minutes since I “died” for the day on the bed, my phone started ringing; it was my friend Akilesh (jealous of my “happy friends” who were partying, I hoped that they were arrested by the police for partying late-night).

 

But it was not, I was surprised to hear from Akhilesh that the party was yet to begin as the birthday boy had been to his other friends birthday which was on the same day (yeah I have such kind of friends also). I was back to life I picked up my best “Shabby” dress and vroomed to the party and yet surprisingly I arrived almost 30 minutes early before the birthday boy blew the candle.

 

The party was good and the DJ played some really good fusion music bambo, Jazz bangra, baila and he sometime also fusioned the music with some Metallica (that was hilarious).  

 

Anyway had a very good day of all sorts of mixture.

No more shopping for me….

Sunday is actually supposed to be the time when I sleep like a grizzly bear in its hibernation, but this weekend was anything. But this day was anything but a time to rest 

 

 

Like a obedient son I went to visit my parents after skipping couple of weekends, so my mother prepared “Pundi” alias Kadabu (it’s a cousin brother of IDLY, because it is prepared with boiled rice and is round in shape) along with coconut chutney.

 

 

 

If prepared at right temperature Pundi and chutney blend with each other and settle like a mellow in the taste buds. I had 7 to 8 of those Pundi, each one the size of a billiards pool ball, it made me quite full.

 

After a heavy breakfast my mother suggested, I accompany her to do some shopping, since it was a longtime that I accompanied my mother like a dutiful son I agreed.

 

Cutting the long story short, one of my mother’s-friend’s-aunt’s-sister’s- son’s wedding was the upcoming event, for which my mother was asked to accompany. Without realizing what I was getting into I simply agreed and went along with my mother.

 

My goodness it was there I realized what the word “SHOPPING” really means, my mom who otherwise seemed to be another simple homemaker turned out to be a Shopaholic. I don’t know wheather she was trying to irritate me or something because with every sari they had a discussion of same details like design, pattern, and colour (as though they were purchasing some BMW or Mercedes).

 

Moreover that Bethaal over the ladder kept on passing the so called “new collections” for every 3 minutes. As the time went along I felt like the most useless fellow in the given situation. I mean during the entire process of shopping my mother was totally engrossed chitchatting with her friend and selecting that sari that she hardly noticed that I existed except for once when she wanted to know the time.

 

Moreover these sari-shops were broadcasting some repeat telecast of a daily soap (some old ladies were totally glued to it). I wondered how well these shop owners knew the art of attracting customers.

 

Seems like the “Sun-day” had brought all the shopaholics’ together the shop was jam packed, the Air-conditioner was useless for such a huge crowd. So I went outside the door after informing my mother and started messaging my friends to kill time.

 

After about 45 minutes another shock was waiting for me when I came to know that after 1 ½ hours my mother had made zero purchases, reason: no much option in colour (but if you asked me there were sufficient colour to make a person colour blind). I was speechless and didn’t know what to say to my mother. I gave a cold stare to my mother but she didn’t even notice and started walking to another shop.

 

Sari hunting lasted for another 2 to 3 hours in which we covered about 6 shops altogether and made no purchases, finally we came back to shop number 3.

The entire expedition was so dreadful and tiresome that I looked like some Government representative who just returned from census duty.

 

 

 

 

But my embarrassment had to bear up for some more time as I had to witness the bargaining methodology (I felt like burying my head under the sand) few minutes later some other ladies joined the debate with the cashier (he was in the verge of resigning from the job). After winning the debate the ladies came smiling out as though they had just received a noble prize for “peace” from UN Secretary.

 

I was literally exhausted due to the entire shopping gala, so after the lunch break I tactfully took a leave from my mom in a pretext of some work.

 

Once I had “The Great escape” I again started working for the Community radio, but unfortunately the internet was frequently down due to heavy traffic.

 

In the evening I attended a painting exhibition organized by Karavali Krishi Janabhivridhi Vedike on artiste impression over Mangalore Special Economic Zone. It was a very intellectual gathering of abstract artiste who with their expert brush-strokes were able to highlight the actual drawback that MSEZ has brought over the lives of farming community.

 

During this occasion after a long time I came across several of my friends who had visited Mumbai along with me like Fr.Arun and Jayanth, it was a great re-grouping of friends after a long time.

 

Every now and then someone or the other asked me the reason for absence during the morning session, to avoid embarrassment I told them that I was busy with a certain project of mine…..

Wish me Best for X-am

Hi guys due to raining exams i will be kinda busy with my books and hunting for related materials.

 

 

 

One of my friends Ms. Charanya recently from mumbai, asked about my exam dates for which i cooly replied that it was on November. But then, the very next day i was informed that the exams were on 12/10/2009, followed by 1st semester on November 2nd.

Anyways i will re-start updating my blog on 16/10/2009, till then I will checking my personal correspondance via e-mail.

Quote

Student’s declaration at the end of answer paper. It Reminds me of Disclaimer Notices!“I hereby declare that answers written above r true 2 the best of mine & my friend’s knowledge & I claim no responsibility whatsoever 4 any mistakes. Whatever I have written is truly fictitious & any resemblance with the Subject Matter is purely Coincidental.”

“80% of the final exam will be based on the one lecture you missed and the one book you didn’t read.”

Did you miss me ???

Hi people …… just got over with the second semester examination….. as of now got two answer scripts which fetched me close to the border line of securing my second distinction this semester. However you never know when things can change in this examinations, so keeping my fingers crossed.

By the way one of my friend who is also a blogger blasted at me because of my habbit of bombarding the email addresses of my friends with my blog updates.

The tone of logic really poured some sense in my brains, he said “just because you have the right to express, it doesnt mean you need pour it on others. So professionally speaking….please spare everyone the horror and send links only to those only who have told you to do so”

Note:I had to censor several ”Words“  or “Lingo” of the advice  as per cinematography act 1957, keeping the interest of the diverse audience in mind (you do know how some people get irritated and use the Right of Free speech royally…Isnt it ???).

The style in which the advice was deivered was less of “thought provoking” and more of “fight provoking“, but since it was the best peice I had listened from him for a very long time, i subsided my anger tentatively and listened. He was actually right – the basic understanding of Rights of free speech and expression in Indian constitution is that – “Your rights end where my nose begins”, So I need to keep my rights to myself.

After this brief thought process we need to arrive at a conculsionRight ?….

So after this post in you inbox. Please let me know wheather i shall send the blog links to your email address or you will be able to refer it yourself, also please suggest if I should improve the flow of my writing or any other related suggestion.

So a message either to my inbox or in the coment space below this article.

Now the world says “JAI HO”

Now sing along as the world follows the Indian footsteps of

JAI HO

[Great Perofrmance by the french group(some refer them as Argentinians)----Kudos]

How does one define a Bad day ???

“Not very often it happens that we get caught in a trouble and to escape from it we are ready to accept help from anyone.” Official this week has been giving me a series of bad experience and tough situation to handle with.

For starters after a very long time I opened my Inbox and did not have a single mail form any of my acquaintances, forget acquaintances not even a spam.  

Usually I curse those spam mails which claims all sorts of hoax in the world, my favorite ones are:

“Some princess Namibura from Korokovikia asking my help to secure her fathers wealth from her maternal uncle. She wants my help in securing her wealth and she is ready to pay me 20% for my service rendered” but today she did not email me.

Or some time I will receive a lottery winners notification that claims I have won $13millions and I need to send $250 dollars for documentation along with my bank account and personal details.

  

Or some other time an email claims to guide me on how to loose 5 kilograms weight in 3 hours or some other thing like that…….  But today none of those funtoosh people bothered to buzz me, my email account had become a “barren” for the whole day.

I thank Bill Gates chacha for creating something called “SPAM”.

Secondly the biggest shocker of the day was a surprise test conducted by the HOD of journalism department Rev.Fr. Richard in which we had to recite the names of  Member of Legislative Assembly’s of Karnataka and Member of Parliament of the Union government of India.

Yes…..we were reminded about the surprise for almost two months but still it’s not like all those MP’s and MLA’S  stay with me in a joint family that I could recollect their names. I mean there are more than 200 representatives with names in all shapes and sounds. We had an option either to name the portfolio or the minister or the constituency, as though that made our job any easier. The whole test was like a sitting duck waiting for the hunter just to pull the trigger.

Anyway after the class I just went down for a break when I met my old friend, who for some reason was wearing a rainbow colored cap and reading a book. That guys after looking at me for about fraction of a second came slowly dragging his feet towards me……5 meters away from me…..then 4 meters…..closer 3 meters…..approaching 2 meters…… his eyelids grew broader….there was some sort of movement in his face…. it looked likeeee….oh yes he was smiling….Just 1½ meter away in a cold tone he announced that according to the Mayan calendar the world is going to end by December 2012”………………….Hmmm…. let’s see my day is going terrible and some guy gives me a dooms day theory “HOW ON EARTH WAS I EXPECTED TO RESPOND CALMLY????”(perhaps I would have been happy if at that point the dooms day would have occurred then). I polite smiled at him and started to think of a reason to run away from this situation .

Some other things of disaster included one of my friend punching my eye to demonstrate how she hit her boyfriend. I call that girl OLIVE OIL (coz she is thin like her) and her boyfriend POPEYE (coz he is associated with the Navy). My eye had inflated like incredible HULK for the next 18 hours untill it settled back to its normal geography.

As of now I am preparing for my exam and the following are in my tasks completed:

New pen bought

Collected previous years question papers

Hall ticked got just now

College dues cleared

Internet connection enabled

Exam rules by hearted

 Only thing left out is that I have yet to start my studies.

I don’t know wheather it is hunger or that I am feeling guilty for not studying my exam I fleeing butterflies or some creature in my stomach. Anyways it is 13.15 PM of Saturday October 31^st, I have to go and just grab some lunch and then study for exam.

I saw previous years question papers of 1^st internals….. Everybody like a Herald Laswell, Shannon weaver, Riley and Riley seemed stranger to me

What is Karnataka Rajyotsava ???

The year 1950 marked India’s emergence as one of the biggest Republic nation in the world. Following in the year 1953, State reorganization commission was formed to re-organize Indian states on basis of language, under the able leadership of Justice Fazal Ali commission. Since the criteria for the formation of Indian States was linguistic; the State of Mysore was created by merging togethar several Kannnada speaking regions of south India.

But very soon there arose a popular demand for changing the name of  “State of Mysore” by its resident citizens. Hence after a prolonged debate and discussion, our then Chief Minister, Late Devaraj Urs took this landmark decision and officially the name of the state was changed to Karnataka on Nov. 1 November 1, 1973.

Coincidently November 1, is also the same day when the States Reorganization Act passed by the Union government of India came into effect.

Every year this date is celebrated as the birthday of the State of Karnataka, popularly this day is called as “Kannada Rajyotsava” or “Karnataka Rajyotsava“, Rajyotsava meaning “birth of a state”. The very name Kannada and Karnataka evoked a sense of unity

Come Nov. 1, Karnataka will be in a joyous mood, the day is observed by the Karnataka State government as a state holiday.  Most of the people while enjoying the gift of holiday on 1^st of November will also show their presence for the official state program in their respective districts, which is celebrated on par with Indian Independence Day celebration .

Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka will take most of the limelight for its standard  celebration on this occasion.

Flood Hit Devastation in Northern Karnataka

This year though the spirit of celebrating the statehood of Karnataka lies in the heart of every Kannadiga, the celebration will be less pompous due to the flood-hit devastation in northern part of Karnataka.

The people of Karnataka along with the Government both at state and national level are undertaking a major rescue and relief operation to save all the people in the flood hit areas of Gulbarga, Raichur, Bijapur districts.

More than 1000 personnel of Indian Army, Indian Air and Indian Navy along with the team of National Disaster Management Authority, Pune have been pressed into service round the clock. The flood which his considered one of the worst in decades and has already claimed lives of more than 280 people. On behalf of the people of Karnataka, this is Harsha Raj Gatty wishing you all “Happy Karnataka Rajyotsava”

Kenya sings the National Anthem of India

Need I say anything ???

Are you the 5000th visitor….

Please check this top left handside corner of the Blog titled “VISITOR COUNT” —>

Hi guys withing 1 days we will be welcoming the 5000th visitor on this blog.  It was a 10 long months wait for this small but grand event.

So I need a small favor from you guys,  if you are the 5000th visitor on this blog then please take a “SCREEN SHOT”  of this page along with the “Visitor Count” and send it to me with a attachment email .  So that we can display it in the blog.

Prior to this I thank you very much for your active appriciation and followup with this blog. And it is only because of your regular visits on this blog that we have reached till this juncture.

I thank you thank you thank you……..once again for your active visit……Which helped the blog to achive this First step landmark.

The 5000th Visitor

So here we have it the 5000^th visitor of the blog. I was not able to update it on the same day because I was a little involved with my exams, which as of now won’t be bothering me till Monday 9^th of this month.

 Anyways here is the page layout at 5000^th visitor; the visitor was an anonymous post. I tried to clarify with email addressee but I did not get any response so far. 

Thank you all once again…..

Another day like this…………

Just finished 2 out of 5 eggjams and there are few more to go till 13^th of this month. The exams are quite interesting and unique as it gives the option to the candidates to answer it in any possible way and justify it according to the theory.

But during the exam my biggest problem is concentrating at study time. Somehow only during the revision time my mind is bombarded with all sorts of thoughts and ideas starting from:

Why a tea without sugar more expensive?

Why there is no coconut sprinkled on the noodles?

Just like there is North and south Indian thali why don’t we have an Indian Thali?

So you get it right, I know that you have good reason to think that I have gone bonkers, but then this is the issue I have been facing right from the time they started teaching that geometry and algebra.

My family has tried all type of recipe on me: like feeding me some trees, I mean plant, homemade chajji-bajji, traditional and foreign decoctions, granny’s recipe, memory books, Google search and all the things which people would usually avoid at the death row. But everything seems to be worthless.

During one of the previous nights of the exam after studying till late night 11.30pm, I decided to dose-off. I had barely closed my eyes when suddenly the alarm went-on. Initially I thought that I had set the alarm in a wrong mode but then to my horror I realized that it was 06.00AM already. I didn’t even realize when the time expressed so fast…… this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. What else to do? I had to get back to revise.

By the way my Punjabi friends from Delhi who is studying in Mumbai seems to be one of the detailed readers of the blog. She always tries to dash in some topic posted in my blog during her email communications. The other day I tried to greet her in some innocent Punjabi via email and she responded to me in her sophisticated English (talk about communication barriers)

A higher primary school boy from Bangalore calls me and passes regards for a passage on Karnataka Rajyotsava seems it helped him to gather a rough picture to form a composition for a class assignment.

Oh right…..I have received an invitation from a friend to attend a surprise birthday party so gotta sign off now at 10.15AM, November 07.

So you think its a fake……?

I wont blame you if at first glance you exclaim that the picture below is a fake. 

So let me try to clarify your doubt with a small video evidence .

Welcome to Princess Juliana International Airport, which boasts of having worlds shortest runway for Airport landing.

This Airport is located at Saint Martin or Sint Marteen island, which is a island contituent country affliated with both Netherland and France.

Now…………do you believe me ? or you want to go ahead and watch again.

“Mungaru Maleye Yeenu Ninna Hanigala Leele”

“Mungaru Maleye Yeenu Ninna Hanigala Leele”

 The above is the first line of the song from the movie “Mungaru Male” “translated in English as “Rain of the season what are the wonders of your dew drops”……… This song is one of most famous Kannada romantic number both for the love-bitten & the heartbroken.

But right now I am neither…………The reason for my sudden recollection of this song is the heavy drizzle in Mangalore, that has caught plants, cats, dogs, human beings, building construction, public meetings……everyone and everything off-guard.

 

As the Mangalore city corporation classifies me under “human beings” even I was there somewhere taking shelter from this strong drizzle under the old library. 

The rain is accompanied by the traditional rock band from the high-sky normally referred by the scientist as “thunder”. It sounds like some heavy metal band playing the title song from the album “GHUDUM GHUDUM” and “KRRRAHKADAKHADUM”. Not soothing to listen but the creation seems to be quite unique; I guess its good enough to be classified under “High art” of Mass culture.

It seems that even the rain is trying to assert its importance in a city where people are getting busier by day. Today, right now is the second time of this month that people of Mangalore are suddenly caught in this confused weather.

 

Have the Rain and the winter season mixed up their time table?

Or

Is it some sort of ego trouble between the two?

Just watch this Video…….

Very nice video ……. I could relate myself to some of the scenarios….

Whats your Raashi???

Whats your Raashi?

I know I am one of the last creatures to watch the movie “Whats your Raashi?” irrespective of different mixed reactions from others. I liked the movie to certain extent because of its fresh and humorous concept. According to me no one but Priyanka Chopra could have justified so many characters with such an ease and excellence.

Impact of the movie on me!!!

After watching the movie this afternoon I am kinda impressed with the method that protagonist adopts to search his life partner.

It’s not the matter whether I believe in “Raashi”or not, but out of curiosity I have gone one step further with this Raashi thing… today whole afternoon I browsed internet pages to compare my “Taurus” Raashi with all the other Raashians to see the best Raashi compatible with mine on a long term relationship. The result of this research was quite interesting and unexpected but then again there are other factors also which determine relationship between people.

Please don’t be surprised if you find me asking around “WHATS YOU RAASHIIII?”

Released on parole

Finally 1^st semester exams are over today and the feeling is not like freedom from jail but then it is something like being released on a Parole (temporary freedom). But then freedom is freedom as of now I can’t think of anything but living life king size.

  

 

Music of Tum Mile

Right now listening to the music of “TUM MILE” for 3^rd of 4^th time, it was for my room mate who wanted to pass it to his friend but then after listening to the song I myself fell in love with it. Especially the love reprise version of “Tum mile” is quite with a feel.

 

My new pet “MACY”

By the way I was on my way to broadcast community radio SARANG107.8MHz; I adopted a small stray puppy and named it “MACY”, a playful puppy full of life; however going by her tiny size she is quite timid when other dogs pass by, she uses lower deck of car to hide and avoid trouble.

Anyways it’s almost a month since I have been meeting “MACY” regularly in the college campus at 6.oo AM. If I sometime reach too early to the studio then she would camp around my bike and starts sniffing the storage area of the bike because she knows that I get biscuits or some other food stuff for her. I thought of posting her picture on the blog but due to exam pressure, I have not been able to go to studio as well meet “MACY”.

I will be going to studio for broadcast tomorrow I brought a cool purple collar for her and next month as soon as I get my monthly “LAAGAN” I plan to take her to the veterinary and get her vaccinated.

World wont end on 2012

I won’t argue if anyone comes-up with a logical conclusion regarding Doomsdays of 2012. But with a little dose of common-sense and optimism I would surely like to research more on the validity of this theory.

According to Ann Martin, a doctoral candidate from the astronomy department of Cornell University, “the Mayan calendar was designed to be cyclical (repetitive) much like our understanding of the concept of “new-millennium”. Therefore it is the end of calendar cycle in Mayan society and not that the world will end.

In fact, the Mayan calendar does not end then, and there is no evidence to suggest that the Mayans or anyone for that matter had the knowledge of “end of the world” she says, on the source link of this article from Yahoo science page. I have just tried to summarise it.

Now Ann Martin is one qualified person whom I would like to listen to before coming to a conclusion about the future of this planet. But then if there are contrary rational to prove this optimistic findings otherwise then it be really interesting to listen.

In any case I will be watching the Sci-Fi movie “2012” in couple of days anyone interested to come along is welcome for a “POPCORN”and a “DATE”. 

I saw the trailer of this movie it looks quite breathtaking seems they must have spent billions of dollars on those graphic technology.

Bal Thackeray Vs Sachin Tendulkar

I held up this matter from publication for about a day so that the entire episode of Thackeray Vs Tendulkar is clear. Heard several commentaries from different sections of the society and saw some serious batting by “Netizens” who have joined on Sachin’s team against the bouncers of BAL Thackeray.

As everyone knows by now that Mr. Thackeray is under severe disagreement from all quarters of India for his editorial comments on his news publication. It is just like a desperate hooting by the captain of a sinking ship to save himself from drowning. The Thackeray’s regime of petty regionalism in politics is finally coming to an end and it’s obvious for him to take his best shots possible in order to have some momentum in his vote bank.

Call me too optimist but I feel Sachin Tendulkar has got much brighter chances of being a Prime Minister than Bal Thackeray to be elected as a chief minister of the State.

The national media is not playing its role responsibly as the voice of the people. The issue raised by Thackeray is obviously to resurface himself in political arena and the media gave him unnecessary platform of free publicity.

I do agree on the principle that the media must be people’s representative but then why courier ideas of such people that are narrow minded and not even supported by the very organization and its people.  

Media must have quickly countered the views of BAL Thackeray with the random opinion survey of Marathi people of Maharashtra. I am sure this kind of exercise would have crumbled the regionalist ideas of Thackeray and would have woken him up for the changes of 21^st century.

Under a common consensus the entire Media fraternity must blackout organization or people that ignite spark and divide national unity with their autocratic directions, posing threat to the national integrity. These organizations also tarnish the image of India at the international level.

Hey Sachin we are proud of your achievements for India and standby you for times to come. You can even say that “You are proud to be the citizen of this world” because you will definitely make a gentleman ambassador for the entire Humanity.

Back from Mediatour

Ho Ho Ho…..Me just arrived back from the Media Tour…. at 9.00PM from Goa-Mangalore passenger train. It was a great fun and learning experience under the able guidance of our tour-coordinator Sr. Celine Vas. Yes I was supposed to come tomorrow but change of plans…..will tell you why some other time???

My apologies to all the people who had to stuff their inbox with my Yahoo Vacation response. I have switched on my regular phone again.

Lot more updates about this travelogue in my blog coming up especially on the IFFI film festival and World record holding Ramoji Film City.

For the past 10 day except for observing field work of personalities from Media fraternity. I have not used my brains one bit….No sir not one bit… Not me……except to separate my clothes for wash.

It was infotainment study tour which was a part of our vacation lasting for 10+5 days. But then being in Media studies this is the best you could bargain for according to Working Journalist Act….

Reached back and really tired….467 EMAILS waiting to be opened Dubai enters debt crisis, India beat Sri Lanka(Good News, but not a fight match), Deepika Padukone left Ranbir and moved on.

Gosh the world has changed so much in my absence, this is why I dont take a vacation…….

Another Semester begins……

It didn’t make any difference as we entered our first class of the second semester at 9.00AM today. But somehow as the time passed an uneasiness started creeping in the mind about investing another 1 ½ year in education.

It all started I guess when I started taking down the syllabus for second semester it was like going through a repetitive exercise of 1st semester. Moreover we enjoyed too much in media tour as though the whole course was over, we had forgotten that we were on a Parole and not free yet.

When I started complaining about that gloomy feeling to one of my buddies I was surprised to know that even he was having the same kind of something something in his stomach. In matter of 15 minutes almost everyone in the class started complaining their own first day sentiments going on in their mind after a brief holiday.

However later somehow everybody got back to life and also celebrated our classmate Kimberly’s birthday. We didn’t have a candle so we decided to use cigarette lighter instead.

A new lecturer Mr. Vishal Nayak will make his Griha-Pravesha for the first time in our class tomorrow.

By afternoon we were packed with syllabus assignment and loads of reading material along with project works. So that hollow hollow felling in the stomach went away I guess. Just like Sharukh Khan says “Hollow Hollow hojayega pyaar sajna…Hollow Hollow hojayega pyaar” okay so that’s holey….Big deal

We were also asked to select the place of internship in the month of April in metro cities. I have as of now thought of Delhi and Mumbai as suitable candidates.

Statistic paper in Mass Communication ???

Yes that’s rights somehow Math’s and statistics seems to be either father mother sister brother of all the subjects in the planet. I mean some or the other way they are related to all the subjects even Mass Communication which I thought was “Math’s proof”.

At least that is what the second semester Syllabus says in MCMS. Today our lecture for statistics paper while introducing the syllabus highlighted on the concepts like Ki-square, co-relation, co-efficient, Annova, non-parametric and so on. Listening to those complicated and sophisticated terminology of economics was sufficient for me to have a mild stroke in the heart. But then i survived.

I had been running away from maths and science subjects’ right from the beginning of my first standard and now I am kinda cornered. I guess this semester will be a kinda “Taare Zameen Par” movie like thing for me.

Anyway the good news is that I have recovered from my 1^st day syndrome in which the person feels bored while attending college. Today the entire day was good.

Who let the Rains out….ufff…uff…uf…uf

I wonder what’s happening up above the world so high……

 There is something called timing for everything right? Then what on earth is this going on… It was indeed hard to believe when a day before yesterday it started raining on cats’ and dogs and other things like me in Mangalore accompanied by some heavy thunderstorm and lightning. Once again I was the victim of this unpunctual schedule of rain from the sky; along with me even my bag which had the laptop got drenched.

I had to take the laptop to the service centre, just to check if the rain water had penetrated inside the hardware. About an hour later when I returned to collect it, the laptop was lying motionless on the service table wired from all direction like a patient in an ICU unit.

The shop space was filled to its maximum capacity but it was quite interesting. This another customer standing next to me was royally yelling at the shop owner for delay in service. Seems they had not given him his Laptop for the past three weeks.

It seemed to me that this angry middle-aged man is working in some college or something. Though I did not dare to meet eye to eye with this guy due to his short circuit, a quick scan at him gave me a possible sketch about who he was. His dressing sense was very  formal with those check pattern and neatly combed, however there was some white powdered dust on his shoulder and same kind of white powder pattern over his pant pocket also on his sleeves, there was also this bag hanging on his left shoulder.

Moreover the words which he royally used to yell at the techies were quite new and provocative, which may be difficult to find in office, I guess. The word were infact so sophisticated that I was impressed and that computer guy had a million dollar look of confusion on his face as though he was just trying to figure out its meaning in his MS-Brain software.  Anyway for me as well as other customers it was a total amusement and some of other customer even joined the tune of this angry young man though they had nothing to do with the matter.

My moment of fun was cut short when one of the techies, who for whatsoever reason had worn pink coloured pant with white colour belt operating my Laptop came up to me and said that my laptop had accumulated moisture, but it would survive.

In any case the rain is supposed to be from June to September right? Then what is it doing now, this is the season when snow and Santa Claus is expected to visit earth any moment. 

However on a serious note….I just wonder if these erratic monsoon tendencies are signs of Global climate shift….

The Kadri Kambla Race

Kadri kambla, hosted one of the oldest sports in Dakshina Kannada on 06, December, 2009. This sport has made its way through a glorious history of over 1000 years and at times even had the royal patronage.

In a Kadri Kambla race, a pair of buffalo is trailed by its handler to the victory point over a farmland filled with water.

This event is closely associated with the farmers because in earlier days there was absence of technology to till the soil for harvesting new crops. Therefore buffaloes were made to run over the farming land to soften the hard soil.

This sporting event is organized usually during the beginning of the second round of crop sowing operation. This sport also tests the bond of team spirit of human beings and animal. Like any other track event and the winner is declared on the basis of timing of  completion in the race.

Kadri has one of the largest space in Mangalore to host this event therefore mostly the buffalo race in Mangalore is known by the jargon of “Kadri Kambla”.

During “Kadri Kambla” other events like tug of war also takes place on the same field. The event is organized by Kambla Samithi with contribution from local admirers of the sport.

Surprisingly this game has gained huge popularity and audience from different parts of country and world, who came to witness this event.

The Sikh community of Mangalore

The Sikh community contributes as one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse communities of Mangalore. In the early 1980’s, the people from Sikh community started visiting Mangalore mainly for trade and commerce. Later in the1990’s this community formally started residing in Mangalore due to growing business and employment opportunity.

Today the Sikh community in Mangalore is represented by 25 families who hail from various parts of country like Punjab, Mumbai, Haryana, New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and other parts of India. Over the years the community has proactively merged with the Mangalorean way of life and has contributed tremendously to its rich traditions of growth and development.

Couple of year’s back the Sikh families from different parts of Mangalore came together and organized themselves into a community group and rented out a place in Mannagudda, Mangalore for a Gurdwara. Apart from prayer session this place also hosts several common gathering of the community members. The Priest of Gurudhwara in Mangalore is Granthi (Gyaani) Shyam Singh Ji.

The daily schedule of Gurudwara begins at 5.00am (Prakash); the morning session is called Nithnem. Nit-Nem is actually a compound word. ‘Nit’ means daily or always. ‘Nem’ is the short form of ‘Nieam’ meaning rule or practice.’Nitnem’ thus means ‘daily practice’ and has been prescribed in the Sikh Reht Maryada, the Sikh Code of Conduct.

It is also very relevant to mention here that the community meets on every Sunday at the Gurudwara sahib to worship “Shri Guru Granth Sahib Ji”, the holy book of Sikhs, reciting verses from it; described as follows:

Japji Sahib – 9.30 am to 10.00AM

Sukhmani Sahib – 10 am

Shabad kirtan after 10.am

Thereafter Guru Ka langar , which is a common kitchen for all, where food (Langar) is served.

A person belonging to any caste or religion is welcome to Gurudwara to pray. A head scarf is worn by those who do not wear a turban (pag or pagri) before entering into the Gurudwara. It is both a moral and religious obligation for the devotee while entering the temple, this is worn to show reverence to Guru Granth sahib.

The concept God in the Sikh community is “Nirankar” i.e. the god has no form and also god is one i.e. ‘ek om akar’. 

The devotees can also participate in kirthan session which is accompanied by several instruments like tabla, harmonium, Dholki. 

All the devotees manage the affairs of the Gurdwara .They also share their responsibility as volunteers for assistance especially during Kirthan and Langar. 

The session in the evening includes;

Rehras

Aarthi

Ardas

Hukumnaama

The final ritual for the day will be Maharaj Sukhasan; this is where the Guru Granth Sahib is requested to take rest for the day. 

The festivals of Sikhs celebrated in Mangalore include Lohri, Baisakhi, and Gurunanak Jayanthi. 

In general people wearing a “Pagri” or “Pag” are referred as Punjabi’s. However the term Punjabi actually signifies the regional belongingness of any person from Punjab just like identity of the people of different states.  

At present the Gurudwara committee of Mangalore is working towards the construction of a permanent Gurudwara near Kottara Chowki, Mangalore. The land has been bought and construction would start next year.

Samosa Ajja…the living legend

Every morning I see this person wearing a white Khadi dress with a Gandhi Topi trying to find some familiar faces and greeting them. He may look like an ordinary old man but then I find him as an icon of hard work, dedication, honesty and commitment. I am talking about Madukeshwar Mudeyappa Malagi still popularly known as ‘Samosa Ajja’.    

 I have seen this unsung hero for approximately 7 years doing his work without any expectations or complain. I wanted to know more on this elderly gentleman so decided to engage him in a semiformal conversation one fine evening at 5oclock. 

Madukeshwar Mudeyappa Malagi or Samosa Ajja as he is commonly known was born in Badami Taluk, Yendigeri Halli, Karnataka on April 1st 1941.  He belonged to a middle class family which had a traditional occupation of petty trading.  From his early childhood days he was interested in pursuing business related occupation and after completing his S.S.L.C examination in 1961he moved to Mangalore in 1970.

From then till date it has been 40 long years that Mangalore has witnessed a man with a dedication for his work running his humble trade of selling sweets and savories. The most popular of all his preparation is a Samosa that he sells for Rs1/-, yes you heard it right.  And this price tag of his samosa is his USP Unique selling point, which has withstood the economic test of all inflation and recession.

Every morning, Samoja Ajja’s routine begins at 4.30 am with the practice of a simple vyama (exercise) followed by puja, then along with his two helpers he prepares samosas.  His routine diet consists of a simple breakfast of Jowar Roti and chutney.  Before beginning his daily business he makes a regular appearance at Sharavu temple in K.S Rao road for prayers.

He reaches is regular business spot by 8.30 am and is through out the day till 5.30pm in the evening, he is engrossed in attending his customers. Being a humble man has earned himself a lot of name and friends among his usual clients. Students of high school and college swarm around him like bees during their free time the peak hour of his business is between 12 pm to 1.00 pm and then 3.15 pm onwards.
                                  
His customers are mostly students, who affectionately call him as Samosa Ajja; his other variety of savory option includes Chikki, Laddus, Pedas, Masala Kadle, and Khadi.  

It is worth noticing that even though he has a stressful day working all the time he always maintains a child like smile throughout the time and greets everyone with respect and patience. 

I found it extremely difficult to believe that a punctual person like Samosa Ajja does not even possess a watch of his own. This meticulous gentleman depends on the High school bell to schedule his task and movement and every time he is right there as usual waiting for you.

Still surprising to know that Samosa Ajja does not take a break on Sunday even at his grand old age of 70years.

             
Samosa Ajja’s service to the community has not gone unnoticed; one of the schools in Mangalore had felicitated him as a chief guest during the Independence Day celebrations in their school campus.

Right from my early child hood days I have heard of many stories or fables which speaks of hardworking people of the society and some day even I aspire to be one. But rarely have I come across any of them in daily commuting, but here is a person who can just fit into the role of a person with principles, discipline and having upright commitment towards his work.  

A firm believer of Gandhian principles of “low living and high thinking”, when I asked him whether his regular was sufficient to meet his daily requirement, he says, “Money is not important, but living life qualitatively is more important.  What more can we do with the money, when the rich man also has to go to the grave and even the poor man has to go to the grave.”

MCMS standsup to the need of the hour…….

Couple of months back some 12 hand picked samples from different walks of like opted to pursue Mass Communication and media studies for whatsoever reason. Ever since then the class scenario has been noted for its high frequency discussion, argument and disagreements that would perfectly represent hell on earth.  

Because believe me when I say that these 12 individuals have opted to pursue Masters Course only for the sake of their professional credentials and not because they lack any mastery over their feild of interest. 

Imagine a world were every new idea has a billion connotation; this is exactly what the class of MCMS represents for. There are thirteen different concepts and suggestion for every single idea raised in the class and not one in agreement with another.  

Lecturers - Sr Celine.. Rev Fr Dr Richard Rego... Mr Vivek Kannadi

Infact everyday the lectures have efficiently turned themselves into professional moderators for bringing about common ground of understanding among this group. 

Yet time and again when challenged the unity of this class spoke out for one another for good and worse.This time the occassion was the Annual Sports day meet of the St Aloysius College. And the group had also to keepup its reputation of getting things done somehow. 

With the thirteen of the 2^nd years gone for their internship since December 1^st, the group of 12 MCMS students were almost multitasking at several ventures simultaneously when suddenly the group was bombed with additional task of walking togethar for a march-past for a Sports day. 

This meant that some quick decisions had to be taken for the given situation and somehow all the thirteen people succefully hid their ideological differences and regrouped with one another with a smiling face for the march-past. 

In midst of  other classes of not less than 49 to 85 students, this group of MCMSians was almost negligible . However this did not make any difference on the spirit of the 4^th estate students. This minuscule group marched right past other groups which were almost triple in the number.  

Coincidently the colour of the group flag represented exactly to the colour of MCMS department which boosted the undying moral of the group. Hence this batch of MCMS students marched on shouting left-right-left without slightest hesitation, challenging the mightiest on the “pathala” ground. 

After 1st semester and half long months for the first time a sense of unity had bonded among the spirit of diversity of this group. The performance of the group was also recognized and welcomed by the audience with a loudest applause for their performance of boldness. 

The Students of Mass Communication and Media studies did not win prize for the march-past and yet they walked off the field with their head held high.

As for me I crazily enjoy the company of my “NAMOONA” classmates….

STREET smart STREET food

It’s quite interesting to come across people who make keep fussing about eating street food like Panipuri, Chinese, Gola or any other chaat item. Some of them prefer calling the unexplored world of street food as junk food but then the same guys don’t mind puffing stacks of tobacco or gallons of alcohol in the name of socializing.

The primary argument is that the Indian street foods have the highest rated caloric value, low on nutrition value, junk content and all that Blah Blah… But that never stops me from exploring those delicacies of Indian flavor that is available with the street vendors.

In fact I was always curious to know how these vendors operated their business in the presence of tough competition from corporate hotels and lounges. Being an occasional customer to such stalls and vendors myself, I had a privilege of knowing more about this unorganized business sector. These vendors are no business graduates from Harvard nor do they have Warren Buffet as business consultant and yet while the world still cribs about the global recession.  

Infact their sales boosted during recessions as the IT BT guys went broke and turned towards these petty vendors for casual snacking. Sometime I also witness some of the high profile people in their status symbol car parked outside these tiny business ventures and munching down the delicacies. 

These street smart vendors know the trick of selling ice-cream to an Eskimo and that’s why they are booming in their business. These food hawkers run business in prosperity while pursuing their livelihood.

For beginners the vendors prepare the culinary in front of a customer to tantalize them towards food. This practice also clears doubts regarding hygienic environment involved in the preparation of food.

I almost start drooling watching the variety of toppings and add-ons that are sprinkled on my palate of food. It also gives sense worthiness to the price paid for the food. Moreover the quantity supplied is quite appealing when compared to a standard hotel.

During the course of knowing their clients the vendors personalize every dish according to the needs of their customer, it can be interms adding or diluting salt, spice or any other details. They just don’t force feed their customers anything in the name of signature dishes. No wonder they register a profit up to 80 to 90 % of their investment.

Mobility is another flexible feature that these guys count on, if the business fails on one location then easily shift their positioning on another street instead of booking loss.  With a good sense of price and positioning of business these street food vendors have marked a success story in the world of unorganized business enterprise.

Life at 70…….

No no…. I have not yet turned 70years old, that event may take some time. But right now I have managed to shed 20 kilos of all the excess carbohydrate, protein, mineral and those wonderful discoveries of biology from my body and proudly i weight arround 70Kgs.

This outcome is the result of two months of labourious routine to convert myself from the Incredible Hulk to Peter parker of Spiderman. The first phase of this effort was in the month of January where I got down to 80 Kilos and the second phase started from this December and settled at 70 Kilos.

Obviously the journey of weight loss was not pleasant, you see I am very emotional about food: the agony, the pain and the suffering that I had to undergo by sacrificing those yummy foods in the refrigerator, the height of courage that demanded me to say no for second helping and all that is still lingers in my grieved memory.

I had to cut-short my food intake from a Elephant diet to a human mode, drink gallons of water on regular basis and then walk for about an hour a day. Yes of course there were times when psychologically I felt like quitting this regimental routine, but then somehow the will power took over the mind and urged me to move on.

 Now having reached the either side of the shore, it’s nice to see good number of people cheering at my accomplishment and my days of struggle were worth it.

Don’t know the medically proven advantages of weight loss as I never bothered to study that, Maybe Dr. Xorkes would like us to help with that. But the immediate “5 points advantages popping-up in my mind are:

• Bike started giving more mileage due to 20 kg less load.
• Brought new belt to tighten pants.
• Using less cloth material to stitch clothes.
• Spending less on food, saving more cash for movie and stuff.
• Standing upright I am able to see my own feet without leaning forward and so on………

At the vote of thanks: I would like to thank my mother for provoking me to loose weight by buying me a tight fit retro-style trouser as a birthday present, when I was 90 kilos and asked me to fit in when I have lost weight.

Today finally I have fit in perfectly.

Nine resolution for 2010

So finally it’s the end of 2009 and the arrival of the first decade of this new millennium. As a formality even I am engrossed in preparing a list of New Year resolution for the following year, while underlining every possible loophole I can take to those commitments. 

The word Resolution when split in two words forms “Re – solution”, sounds like it has something to do with finding new solution or doing things the right way.  The season of resolution also gives an excuse for some of us to justify our sudden change in behavior instead of embarrassingly admitting our mistakes.

To err is human they say, hence I have good number of reasons to make plenty of commitments of betterment.

 The first and foremost priority of this entire year is to pass in the statistic paper this semester, which has been playing “Thandava” in my academics.  Even if I just pass on this paper I promise to three more calculations as a pledge.  

Gotta maintain that 70kilo of luggage in my biology for the entire year, so it means I need to distance myself away from food and embrace exercise. Can life be more horrible than this? 

Want to gobble these yummy delicacies at least once like lobster, Turkey, Caviar, Dark chocolate, Dokhla, Sushi, Chocolate shot, Ice-peda, cheese cake and Tiger prawns. Must hunt for these food and consume as early as possible. Invite me if you are preparing any of the above. 

Need to learn preparing more food items; other than preparing noodles, boiling water, steaming egg.

Also need to put up the habit of listening to new ideas in spite of contradiction. 

It’s hard fact for me to digest that in the world there are 5 billion people and I have just 78 friends and around 100 other acquaintance in total. So I need to make more friends and network with more people transcending all kinds of discriminating barriers.   

Actively need to involve in festivities celebration of different communities of India which is celebrated in a rich traditional and glamorous way be it religious communities or ideological groups 

Seriously need to improve my handwriting which the government is in the verge of either banning or declaring it as a new Lippi or a language. 

On weekly basis must watch newly released movies on first day first show basis. 

The above are the only few things I can grasp to improve at ASAP criteria… If you have any other suggestion that I need to look upon immediately please feel free to recommend.

Just finished my first Directorial Debut……..

I finally get time to tap something on my laptop…. Not that I was in a busy schedule or something but for the first time I was directing a movie. It was a short film called     “The-Barricade” which is supposed to exhibit my skill on broadcast media. Since it was for the first time I involved myself in a film production as a director, I could learn many new things.  

Usually onscreen a director is represented by a guy who has all the wonderful equipment of the world under his footsteps with a round-hat and a chair. But in reality my theory would say that director had to be a multi-tasking person who is sandwiched between defining creativity and justifying to the producer.

Though the title says “Director”, directing people was the least and last authority I had especially with my crew. Especially since it was a non-commercial movie, it involved no remuneration to the participants of the production process. I had to squeeze almost all the experience of my life to negotiate, convince, influence and yet maintain patience with the regular changes that came with the production process. 

Starting with the sacred task of convincing the story board with the script for approval, then scouting for locations, making the actors understand their character sketch, capturing shots at night with artificial lighting, working with the sound co-ordination department, constantly talking over the phone to co-ordinate with all the things, demanding meticulousness from editors, convincing storyboard about the needed leniency in script alterations and finally running short of limited budget constantly. 

Since I needed some online material I stayed at home for couple of days and also had to face the music from my parents who were unhappy with my check-in and check-out time. Moreover the regular classes from 9 to 5 left me with little options but to edit the movie at night.

Now after cribbing all the way from the beginning if I have led to an assumption that this story ends like every other “Lived happily ever type” then lets pull-up the handbrakes at once. Because when I reviewed the captured shots we realized that the lighting had given way for a major error some scenes had totally blacked-out and it took some very good patience of my editor for improvisations.

In my opinion the movie has turned out to be okay for amateur with a lot of scope for improvement. But the efforts that the cast had put by working18 hours after class without a decent break and the technical crew sat on the editing table for 20 hours non stop to get the project done. My friends I prostrate before you for you unquestioned trust and co-operation.

As for me, I have gained a lot of experience being the part of the process and probably will work on the errors on the next projects. As of now will vrooming to my PG and be dead in the bed till tomorrow morning…. Happy Sankranthi to all

Killing ego for Good………

“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” – Abraham Lincoln

This quote ever since I heard of it has been challenging my thought process, because I assumed that at certain level every person must nurture “EGO” as a part of their behavior. However I dont mean of putting down the defences.

But then, couple of week’s back I had a major fight with one of my friend whom I had known since 2^nd standard.  I can’t remember for what reason, but at the end of the day we both left without seeing each other. Just like any other fights in the following days there were silent treatment and pretension of feeling disturbed by each others presence, sounds immature, isn’t it?

Weeks later in one of the party’s while my friends started introducing to new acquaintances, even I met couple of people. The laser disco light was directly beamed into the eyes, in that semilighting condition one could hardly see and assume what the other looked like. But even in this scene I could recognize this guy whom I was above to shake hands, my old buddy. The moment we saw each other we withdrew our arms back to our pocket as though we had touched a 230 volt shock or something, we felt embarrassed and left. For the rest of the party I was with my friends on the east and the other was on the west.

From then on several other occasions we either smiled blankly or pretended not to notice another. But I know this friend like my brother for a very long time, so it was difficult to pretend not knowing him.

Hesitantly then one day I decided to call-off the cold war and spoke normally to my friend. In return I got the usual suspicious look, the reason was quite obvious. But then I felt quite peace at mind as though I had done something great. So I made this practice every time and then carried on for business as usual.

Things went like this for quite sometime till one fine on Sunday my roomies told me that some friend of mine was waiting for me in the hall. You guessed it right, that was my old time buddy friend who had come to meet. He had come to invite me for a party, and without any apology or remorse we spoke to each with quite normal flow for 10 minutes or something.

Couple of days later I read this book on Abraham Lincoln where I read his words “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them” and then I realized that these were some signals for me to grow up intellectually. Break all these petty personal conflicts and “EGO” related matters, because I could not let my ego control my relationship with my friends and my behavior. 

After lot of thinking I took one of the most bold decision of my life, I broke this mental barrier called “EGO” and messaged several of my old acquaintance on email or via SMS whom I believed to have communication gap and just sent “HI” as subject and the body of the message. I was quite taken aback the next day when found that almost 80% of the addressees responded to me. Some stories they shared were lengthy enough for a love letter but worth reading every word. 

Is Photography an Science or an Art………….

Recently I heard some interesting questioning on the fundamental concept of the photography. As they say listening to new ideas brings you closer to a subject and this is how it all started.

                                                              

The point of discussion was whether photography is an art or a science, being an amateur and a hobbyist photographer myself the spontaneous flow of thoughts of the participants against the old conventional ideas hiked my curiosity towards the debate. I had my own reservation regarding the matter at first but then after listening to the volley-ball of dialogues from both the sides I decided to do some research on the matter before drawing a conclusion.

However I would also like to welcome any kind of further interpretation that would either contribute to the understanding of photography or submit an alternative theory. 

An artist arranges his art-palette with different colors, erects the painting canvas at a proper height and chooses an appropriate painting brush to illustrate his creativity. Then with a synchronized movement of wrist muscle, the artist strokes the canvas with a right amount of pressure from the brush to create a masterpiece. Now can we address this artist as a “colour scientist” and his art-work as an “invention of science” because he used colours that are made out of chemical?

Then how can we say photography is a science just because it needs a little understanding of film developing technology from the photographer.

Like the above given example of a paint artiste even the photographers need to have an in-depth knowledge on all the materials being used for photography. Unlike the pursuit for perfection by the scientist in science for a definite outcome, a photographer can never claim to have captured a perfect image. A photographer can only try to capture his subject using his best judgment of his creative techniques and imaginary skills.

As the proverb quotes “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, hence it is not necessary that everyone shares a similar opinion on a photograph. Since both admiration and criticism is a subjective concept, the audience becomes the ultimate judge to interpret this art both as an admirer and a critic.

As a conclusion I would like to add that photography is an art that tries to entice the visual sense of its audience and often speaks louder than words.

Reaction to 1st Semester Results

Saturday afternoon I called up my mother to tell her that, a decent 75% figure was on my report card this semester. At first I received congrats from her, but then immediately she started her usual speech and comparison on “How her colleagues’ son got 93% in his exam and how I keep a target of 95% for the examinations in the future. Earlier I used to argue at this point and express my frustration, but I am quite used to the drill, so I know exactly how to behave. I kept on saying, okay…….okay…..okay and that’s it … after sometime she had to attend her work and then “Alls well that ends well”.

The college notice board which otherwise would remain like a barren desert was crowded with students. I was planning to go home after a glimpse on my results but then I met one of my old acquaintances and got engaged in conversation. With nothing much to do I started off with my bad habit of observing student reactions after knowing their results. The college had suddenly turned into a film set of RAJASHREE productions with a mixture of all sorts of emotions from students pouring with relatives and friends to see their results. 

Its bad manners, but I must confess that I could not resist eavesdropping to conversation among students. A group of guys with spike haircut and the photo print of Cheguvera on their t-shirts were seriously discussing the prospectus of joining their family business, supporting their parents and leading a good life: The reason was quite obvious; they had flunked in their exams and did not have any alternative plans so they had to pack their bags back to home. 

Regular toppers who had secured less mark than their competitors made their best effort to hide their regret by pasting an artificial smile on their face. Their eyes were almost red with moisture of tears which they must have washed of few minutes back. If eyes could kill, there would have been a mass grave of toppers who had secured more marks than these less fortunate. Some other students were just wailing and trying to justify how officials at correction centre were unfair with their papers.

Quite strangely there were some students who seem to worry about those who had not managed well in their exam. I really felt appreciating the efforts of these noble souls who were preaching others to focus on other important things of life than securing good marks. It was an exceptional service I felt, but then a little enquiry over the matter just revealed the true picture about these people. These creeps were the 1^st rank holders in their respective batches and had no reason to worry whatsoever they would be probably receiving their gold medal from the university very soon and hence they were being Mother Theresa’s.

Jeeps and bikes were roaring, some of them had started vrooming towards the nearest party house for celebrating whatever results they got.

My association would definitely be the “The free-spirits” GROUP – The one with their own mind. So 50% in theory and the 75% in practical would just be my cup of tea.

As of now heading to café – coffee Day.

Adjust Complain or Lead

Human beings have been classified into various categories with regards to their intelligence, appearance race, religion, gender and all the other type of quantifiable and qualitative assessments. A famous quote once defined human beings only as a social animal, however today it is conclusive that human beings are anything but simple beings. Complexity is found in almost every aspect of human behavior, the way we talk, act, think and behave in different circumstances.

It wouldn’t be apt on my part to assert my study as a experience as I have a lot more to learn from life. But due to interaction with people from different walks of life, I have slightly developed a skill of systematic observation. Mostly I observe behavior, body language, action and reactions of people on various situations, on the basis of social activism or the role of individuals in the society people can be divided into three types.  

Adjusters

 “Live and let live” in simple words seems to be the belief system of the adjusters who are quite contented in minding their own business. Adjusters take minimum risk and commitment for the society. They do not bother to interfere in other’s matter unless they are either directly or indirectly affected by it. Their words and actions are a calculated and measured in usage EG: If an adjusters come across a pothole on the road they would rather go around it mumbling few curses on City Corporation for poor maintenance than taking some initiative to resolve the matter.  

Complainants

Complaining about someone or something is a universal practice of expressing grievance among human being. But complaining can be effective only if it is addressed through a proper channel or through a person concerned. However this practice of complaining is taken for granted by many complainants. It is one of the favorite national pastimes which has even inspired several television serials, with special reference to “K” serials. Complainants are the one’s take every opportunity or forum to express their grievances any where anytime. However they usually use most of their potential either in kitchen gossip or even better to crib during their leisure.

It is either that the complainants are not aware of the proper mechanism to get their problems resorted or they just do not have enough conviction to highlight objections. In any case they end up taking no action for justice and just end up as complainants.

Change leaders/ agents

These people take the entire limelight in the society due to their extraordinary ways of expressing the matter. Usually the heroes or the change agents or the leaders of the society are characterized for having upright conviction and moral integrity while bringing justice to their cause.

Their innovative methods of resolving social evils or initiation of a new thought process can mould the outlook of the entire generation’s altogether.  These are the people who are instinctive experts in identifying the roots of the problem and systematically engage with it Head on.

The leaders are mostly portrayed very gloriously in cinemas inspiring the audience to be like them. However what the cinemas don’t show is the stiff resistance, disagreements, hardships and the patience that these leaders face during their years of struggle to float new ideas. Usually the leaders of these societies owe a lot of sacrifices in terms of family and relationships, money and sometime even life.

The novel ideas of these revolutionary thinkers have left an ever lasting impact on the entire humankind and yet it is difficult to believe that these mere mortals are just made of flesh and blood like you and me.  The reason I pursued to understand the above differences is to know the order of my belongingness to the particular group.

“I tried being an ignorant … but the problems kept on haunting me

I tried to complain but nobody would listen

Then I decided to face them, now I can’t find problems anymore”

Not even half way through being an agent of change I have realized that it is not bed of roses. But then this beautiful romance that I derive with success achieved after a long struggle boosts the moral to confront more challenges.

So its time for Valentines……….

So the V-day is finally here on February 14, universally acknowledged as Valentines Day. However everyone observes this day according to their own priority of preset tasks.

On this particular day I have observed several of my friends being quite hyperactive as though they have been hit by a steroid from cupid’s arrow, they seem to be all over the place with a never say die attitude.     

On this day expression of love can be addressed to anyone, be it between friends, boyfriend/Girlfriend, among family members, parent & kids, spouse and everyone for that matter. The whole day is not only eventful with the presence of couples all over the places but also colorful; one step outside the four walls will immediately transport one to a host of colorful bliss.

It seems the color codes on this day have primary significance: 

Red: Means Engaged i.e. these people are already seeing dating someone and therefore they are not ready to accept new proposals. While the red one’s celebrating this day would go along with their would-be on a special date to a restaurant or a long drive.

Green: No they are not vegetarians, they are the ones without any particular plans and they are interested in observing the rituals of the day. Some of them even plan for this official day to sign the “DECLARATION OF LOVE” for an entire calendar year of 364 days.

Yellow: No offence I am very much amused with this “ONLY FRIENDS TYPE” of people, they are a perfect role models for a government advertisements from the Ministry of family welfare. These guys desperately want to explore the mysterious excitement of this day, but yet they pretend to be neutral by highlighting themselves in yellow. It’s like they want to be a part of the celebration, but don’t want to be associated with it.  

White: “I WILL BE THERE FOR YOU ” These are the bunch of Jigsaw puzzles are called friends, who can’t find any better person or reason for not celebrating this day but with one another.

Friends usually hang out on malls and have lunch or dinner together on this occasion and end up shelling a lot of hard cash on buying gifts to their Bestestestestestest friends. Having friends always makes us feel wanted because at the end of the day it is always better to know that we are at least cared by some.   

The above color codes are observation specific and I cannot assure if they are universally applicable. But then again who cares for the technicality on this day all that matters is showing someone that you really care or expressing your soft corner for someone.

If you find any other color other than on the streets than these then it probably means:

1. They forgot about their date.
2. They dont observe this day.
3. They have stored their dress for the final countdown.
4. They have just broken up and repeatedly assert that they do have faith in love anymore.
5. Or finally they probably belong to an organization that does not allow believe in expressing love.

Interestingly I found this group of intellects that has come up with a theoretically justification for not celebrating this day according to them “LOVE CAN BE EXPRESSED AT ALL THE TIME OF THE YEAR THEN WHY PARTICULAR ON THIS DAY” Now this is one of the reason why I love India, for every thesis there is a hypothesis and unique interpretation.

In any case what’s the harm in enjoying one sunday in a unique way instead of spending it like just another weekend.

Anyways for all you guys celebrating “Valentines Day” have a wonderful day and time with you loved ones.  Else enjoy your weekend.

Not that noble after all………..

The entire day passed quite well as the mood in the air was quite good for a little relaxing and music after two months of busy projects and assignment. Some of my friends and I went out to have some light chomp-chomp in the mall and buy some T-shirt and shoes My friends insisted me to join for another movie but I was already done for the day watching three movies Back2Back.

On my way back as usual the power was out in my residential area so my lonely walk was accompanied by a ghostly silence in a pitch dark night. Anyway as I passed through an under construction flat some five hundreds meters away from home. I could hear some sound from a nearby distance, the sound seemed as though someone was crying in pain, but because of absence of anything in sight and distance that sound didn’t make any sense.

Out of curiosity I went towards the direction of the sound which took me to the rear side of that under construction apartment.  Nearing the other side of the apartment transported me to another world all together I can say. It was a crowd of construction laborers who were busy with their evening chores after the laborious day, none of them seem to notice my presence, perhaps the dark night also added as a cover for my investigation. 

As I roamed around the entire site with unquestioned curiosity and fascination on the life of these individuals, I was again distracted by the same sound which had brought me to this scene in the first place. I quickly gathered my pace and started walking towards the direction of that nonsense “sound” which had already started making some sense. From a distance I could see a small boy being repeatedly beaten up by a lady, who I suppose was his mother.

Though the entire scene was dark, but the place where the boy was beaten up was lit with fire cinder. So I could safely approximate that the age of the boy was between 3 to 4 years old.

A crowd of people had also gathered to see this drama, while I never actually came to know why the boy was being punished for? Some elders were justifying that the boy was being rightly disciplined for his deeds; there were others who were trying to stop the lady for acting so violently against that little life. 

While some may define an act of violence against the small child as a domestic violence, some other may sing the tune of “Spare the rod, spoil the child” for covering their guilt of the act.

Thought the entire incident lasted for not more than 15 minutes, it has lasted in my mind long enough that I had to narrate the incident by its detail. To a great extent even I am also responsible for the plight of the boys as I neither did nor say anything during the incident.

I was standing there just like rest of the idiots perhaps worried about my social status, while ignoring my social responsibility watching the show of human rights the violation. Though I have gobbled almost all the pages on human rights, the laws and its violation. I terribly regret for acting like helpless common man. 

I still remember the young toddler was screeching unable to bear the pain and yet all the while he could utter only one word repeatedly “AMMA” means “MOTHER” in English. Standing 10 meters from the place of incident I am not sure whether the boy had whip marks on his legs from that tree stem which was used to hit him. But I am sure that I saw that the kid’s eyes were filled with tears while repeatedly calling for his “AMMA”.

But my actions were “NOT NOBLE AFTER ALL ”

Why ban any organization???

For years, the world knows India as a nation which the British handed over to an unchallenged administration after independence. However, today India has not only carved a niche to itself as one of the most developing nations of the world but also socio-politically mature civilization.

Ironically when it comes to socio-political maturity, some of the biggest self proclaimed democracies have their own reservations on accepting certain ideologies. Certain capitalist countries like United States favoring capitalism are harsh against communist & Marxist principles; they feel threatened in accepting new ideas or philosophies.

But in India there is a true sense of freedom for everyone to choose the ideology of ones choice like democracy, liberalism, Marxism, federalism, unitary governance, capitalism, socialism, parliamentary under one roof etc. Therefore India it has gained a bold reputation for harboring different ideologies and beliefs

Society by rule consists of people who want to pursue different philosophies in life; the ideas may be classified as narrow or broad minded views. The existence of such ideas is the only way to lead the society towards progress; these ideas form a core foundation of the society.

I am quite surprised when some intellectuals brand other organization as “Narrow minded” or “Extreme Liberalism” and seek an excuse for imposing a ban on them. Be it broadminded or narrow I personally consider it quite barbaric when one group tries to kill the belief system of another by demanding legal abolishment of the same from the society. It is just wishing for a death of a person because his stands out to be different from the rest. I mean if everyone are mandated to pursue only one kind of ideology then what’s the point owning democracy.

Every ideology has its own pro’s and cons but such glitches must be deliberated & improvised, but banning them is never the solution.

History stands testimony that when an idea or belief has been suppressed they have reemerged in the society with a revolution. Every idea needs a forum of expression but in the absence of such platform ideologies convert into frustration thus leading to an aggressive representation. Everybody will be quite clear with the precedence of Nazism on this context which brought shockwaves to the entire European continent. A ban on organization will only bring an abrupt halt in its structure but its followers will continue to pursue the idea as they won’t be accepting an end to it.

It is true that believers of certain ideological groups have taken into radicalism or extremism as their weapon to impose their ideas on others. This is because they don’t find any confrontation from the other school of thoughts in terms of debates and discussions.

Since ancient times India is known for its broadminded characteristic of absorbing principles of universal ideology and fairness. It is very interesting to note that most of our nationalist ideas have their origin in foreign land, which has been then modified to suit the Indian standards. But today when the new leaders of India are trying to come up with their own thoughts & ideologies why is the society demanding a ban for their difference in opinion for a better society.

Today India stands in the cross a road of history with statesmen from different ideological schools defining a common outlook to the world from the Indian. So when the Indian intellects are deliberately pursuing new ideas and social experiment then why stop it for short term ends? The only way to confront ideological differences is by deliberation and mutual understanding by the intellects as well as the commons in the society.

My nominee for the World Women’s day….

“Behind the success of every man there is a woman”, say’s a quote which has become a cliché on any occasion while introducing women. Since even my origin is traced back to the same old no good society,  even I am starting this passage with the same old “Quotable quote”.

Yes, it is difficult for me to share my credits of success with anyone, but then it would be criminal on my part if I deny the share of my credits to some women who in some or in other way have helped me to be a better human being.

The highest credit among them all goes to my mother…..

It may take multiple entries defining of who or how my mother is? So to cut the long story short my mother is a typical Rakhee Gulzar type from the movie Karan Arjun.

As far as celebrating “Womens Day” or “Mothers Day”or celebrating her “Happy Birthday” is concerned, I usually goof-up during the gift shopping on this occasion. Since it is easy for me to associate her appearance in the kitchen, I used to present her with gifts like sandwich maker,pressure cooker, chapatti belan or an air-tight container.

Though my mother accepts these gifts gracefully without any complaints, she uses the same gifts as a medium to express her frustration. Somehow I still regret presenting her with that genuine ISI marked, metal coated Teflon plated Chapatti belan with ISO 9001-2000 certificate, which acted like the Drone bomber on me especially when I failed in mathematics exam during my high school.

Since then I am very particular about the material of the gift that I present to my mother. So according to the my personal constitutional amendment on buying gifts, I don’t buy gifts with metal or metallic finish. Its either buying a sari or some fiber photo frame. Though these new range of gifts are expensive they are risk free and non-violent.

But in spite of all these complains I still have a great respect for my mother for inculcating discipline, patience and manners in me. She also has been kind enough to tolerate all my mischievous deeds and protect me from the wrath of all those things and people against me.

So I wholeheartedly thank my mother for socializing me in the right direction, so that I could contribute and carve my own identity in the society.

My Name is Gatty say GHA from the epiglottis…

I know that the title sounds “VERY ORIGINAL”, but it is only to clarify the pronunciation of my name which became “GYAATTI” instead GATTY while in Bangalore . We were notified by our HOD, that  Mr. N. Ram; the editor in chief of The Hindu would attend a seminar conducted by St Josephs College, Bangalore.

Since Mr. N.RAM’s name was added in the invitation, we the students from the MCMS department made some quick travel plans to meet this living legend. But tickets were not available both in bus and train for this 360 kilometer journey as it was  a weekend. But our desperation got better of us and we decided to travel 12 hours to Bangalore sitting in a general compartment of a train.

Initially we are all excited about the heroism involved in traveling such a long distance for the sake of the academics. But this 12 hour of journey gave us the enlightenment on the topic called “Underestimating trouble” authored by MCMS students. It turned out that since it was a weekend the train was crowded beyond its maximum capacity. So we had to rush like the victims of a Mad cow diseases to hunt a decent seating space in the general compartment as soon as the train halted.

We realized that our efforts had paid off only when we realized that we had not only managed to enter the boogie with our hands and legs on their joints but get sufficient number of seat to accommodate everyone in the group.

After some time we settled down in the compartment and tried to distract ourselves with something or the other. One of my friends took a royal privilege of defeating me twice in the game of chess, first in three andthen in sixteen moves respectively. As I sat there ashamed of my glorious defeat my victorious friend boasted of his achievements and embarrassed me the whole night.

As the night passed by, the journey was taking its toll the excitement on our face gradually disappeared as we desperately looked for a space to sleep in the sitting chair class.  It was during these moments of struggle I found VEERU SAHASTRA BHUDDHI’S theory of competition quite true, as all of us started kicking, pulling, falling on one another to have a comfortable selfish sleep.

Even I caught up a decent two hour sleep in the luggage berth on the top; however the Indian railway seemed to be quite aware of rascals like me who try to make most of it by purchasing a ticket for a merge sum. Therefore they had dismantled three out of five wooden bars of the luggage berth, so that it can accommodate only a narrow suitcase and not people. So as you can rightly imagine the whole night I slept like a trapeze artiste trying to balance while sleeping.

Early morning we were welcomed by the cold chill of Bangalore and I tried messaging some of my contacts in the city.  We had an interesting chap from the organizers as an escort who was quite familiar Bangalore and its romance with the economics and politics of Karnataka.

Here one of this coordinator called me “GYAATTI” instead GATTY everytime.On several occasion I thought of correcting him and make use of his Epiglottis to pronounce  ”GHA” instead of “GYAA” but then I thought why to make my name an issue? However this is where my assumption went wrong, because for the next two days everyone in the host college found “GYAATTI” as a peculiar name and with one pretext or another they would call me out loud so that everyone else could here it.

A Village drive and A Cutting chai……

Trying to overcome the unbearable heat of Mangalore city coupled with examination, extra curricular and other assignment pressure made me go bonkers. So I finally decided to break free from my regular routine. The same day after the completion of the 2^nd internal examination I grabbed my bike and drove approximately 55 kilometer towards Mangalore rural.

It was comparatively a long drive but I really wanted this type of break for a long time. As I drove through National Highway 42 there was this small isolated diversion that always used to capture my attention during my earlier travels but never had a chance to explore it. So I gathered that the time had come to get lost from life, so I followed this uneven muddy path.

A five minute drive in this interior drive through brought me to this some small village settlement. The pattern of this village establishment was quite different there was one residential structure for every 200 meters in between open agricultural fields. Still about 500 meters down the road there was this huge agricultural cultivated land with a tractor standing motionless in its midst. It was quite surprising to see that this village had no electric facility; somehow it was isolated from the developmental map of the administration.

The farmers who had toiled all day among the field sowing food crops seemed to be returning home. The chatter-patter of these gentlemen farmer who were in a group of twenty or so could be heard even up to the distances of 500 meters.

As this crowd came closer I caught some close up pictures of these farmers with my camera which was with me. The children’s accompanying this group were immediately attracted by the camera and they herded me with their curiosity.  The kids then guided me to different locations with awesome picturesque scenario. I was also able to visit this huge play ground which had a school in its remote corner.

The sun seemed to have some sort of mood swings and the mixture of color palate made it quite evident. The texture of the sky on this particular day had a combination of yellow soft bulb light shade along with the beam of pinkish orange hue as in a cocktail fusion. The climate of this romantic evening and the soft breeze whistling-by filled the senses with so many ideas and thoughts of being in paradise.

I was also quite amazed the way these children of seven to twelve adapted themselves to the technology of the camera. They also insisted me to click several photographs of themselves along with their friends and later asked to showcase it on the display screen. So I had this golden opportunity to photograph several Hrithik Roshan’s and Salman Khan’s all at one location asking their silver lining “Mera number Kab ayega”.

It was almost 20 minutes since the last kid left home after being called by his mother, all alone I waded alone towards the school complex to get some photograph. It was then this creepy feeling of being lonely in the entire ground that entered my mind. I must confess that this spooky feeling of being in this gigantic place quickly made me rush my way towards the bike almost scampering.

I was above to drive away but in about 100 meters from the school ground I had a chance encounter of this canteen. As I entered this makeshift mobile canteen a quick scan made me realize that I could recognize some familiar faces which greeted me with a warm smile. Quickly I realized that these were the same farmers whom I had met across the field earlier in the evening.

It seemed that this was the regular hangout of these gentlemen who used this place for some regular chatter patter, while waiting for a quick bite. The crowd very warmly accommodated me and then they engaged me in some lighter conversation. They asked my whereabouts and the purpose of my visit very casually, while introducing themselves.

The spontaneous chat session covered politics, economics, social activism and so many other topics and in a short span they made me feel at home.

I was able to notice that these people are quite serious about their food because the moment the food entered the dining area there was this dead silence as people settled down bite their share of palate. Every morsel of the food was chewed and relished with utmost respect to the different flavor and with due regards to the finest cooking skill of the chef of the mobile canteen.

This food was like a reward for these hard working unsung soldiers of the nation who drive70% of the economy. I couldn’t be more proud but honorably associate myself with their way of life of these great gentlemen. I just loved to slurp the tea with a frequency of along sound against the etiquette books of my father.

The price of the food in this canteen did not exceed the price tag of more than 7 rupees so being a foodie I had a big excuse to stuff myself. But then the farmers further extended their warm hospitality by exempting me from paying for my snack.

One of the elderly gentlemen thanked me for taking his sons picture, I was about to say “Don’t mention sir, that’s all right”, but almost immediately he added “now take my picture with my friends”. OOOPS!!! I hadn’t thought about this scene.

Yes exactly, it meant that for the next fifteen minute I had to take picture of the father of the future Hritik Roshan and Salman Khan.

By the end of my short expedition I was almost filled to the brim, but again was insisted to have the dinner at one of the farmer’s home. It was almost 10.00clock as I promised to post all the photographs to the postal address of the mobile canteen owner.

Then it was a 1 hour journey back to my home in the dark nostalgic night.