Theertha Yatre!!!

After coming out of vicious circle between office n home...atlast i got a much needed break..which was spent in touring north india. The fortnight trip allowed me to explore many places across north india, Must say the trip was fantastic..........It educated me lot of things.
The good points :
*The ganga flowing in Rishikesh n haridwar are much better as gaga reaches kashi/varanasi later
*I was amazed looking at dharmshalas in rishikesh n haridwar as they provide food n living for ppl on return of just doing bhajans in temples
*hats off to british who founded mussourie and made a living over there as it is a fatastic place to visit which is 6000 ft above see level !!!
*regarding taj mahal wat i can say apart from "WAH TAJ!!" every indian shud visit once in life time to this beautiful monument wonder wat n all ppl do in luv?????? tat to the king built it with IMPORTED Marbles?? wow........ very rich king n i also go to know tat his son caged him so tat he wont repeat the mistake of building luxurious monuments for the sake of luv....hmm smart son :)
*the palaces,forts, the jewellery, the antics of jaipur is mindblowing...the pink city is more than just beautiful
*the lotus temple in delhi is an amazing example of engineering...one of the visitor next to me was telling his friend tat...lotus mahal is even better compared to Oprah hall in sydney :) tat was a nice compliment

The bad points:
*Indians are growing above their current levels but NOT all.
* my whole country is not living with atleast 1 meal perday(I too fast at office as am lazy to go n get some food to my desk due to pressure of meeting deadlines at work but for some its a daily routine)
*large chunk of ppl stay in slums(I saw it when i travelled in train from varanasi to delhi)
*Never travel in Indian Railways for long distance!!!
*large chunk of ppl still sleep in railway platforms as well as near temples as tat is their home(got to know after visting holy places like haridwar, rishikesh, varanasi)
*paan of banaras is even famous in south of india but visting banras educated me tat ppl from age 10 to age 100 eat paan and dont even think once before spitting ganga :(
*ppl all over india thrive to take a dip in holy river ganges in kashi , but trust me i even hesitated to touch it wen i saw it

Dilli Chalo..

Though there was hectic work schedule on weekends (after looooooooong time am working on weekdays & weekends!!!) I managed to go out to see a place which I was longing to. Its RAJGHAT....Gandhi samadhi. I remember this place was shown in television on every 2nd of october as well as when foreign dignitaries across the world visited India as this is a must visit venue for them.It was quite emotional to go there......I felt I was connected to that place....The reason is, my grandpa was a great Gandhi follower. He was a teacher and freedom fighter who went couple of times to JAIL during British rule!! Interestingly my granndma use to get extra pension as grandpa fought for freedom and had gone to jail. And whenever I visited my granny's place and saw the copper plate hung on wall which is a recognition given by Gandhi to my grandpa I felt proud about it. So I felt I too am connected to Gandhi :)

The second place I visited is India Gate and Rashtrapathi bhavan. Until I visited the India Gate I never knew the importance of the place!! It is situated on Rajpath. It was orginally called as "All India War Memorial". It was built by Edwin Lutyens to commemorate the Indian soldiers who died in the World War I and the Afghan Wars.The most interesting thing about India gate is, it has the names of the soldiers who died in these wars inscribed on the walls. Amar Jawan Jyoti (The flame of the immortal warrior) is burning under it since 1971, which marks the Unknown Soldier's Tomb.

On the top of the Gate the following line is inscribed:

To the dead of the Indian armies who fell honoured in France and Flanders Mesopotamia and Persia East Africa Gallipoli and elsewhere in the near and the far-east and in sacred memory also of those whose names are recorded and who fell in India or the north-west frontier and during the Third Afgan War

I also walked in the hot scorching sun from India Gate to Rashtrapathi Bhavan which made me feel proud as this is the place where great Indian leaders stood/walked/gave speeches :)

The third interesting place i visited is "Andra bhavan", a hotel near India Gate which is rated as one of the best quality/price hotel in India!! 65 Rs per delicious meal was much better than paying 60 + tax for a masala dosa with chutney (which is really unique!!) @ food court in my workplace :)

There is no caste in blood, but it is ....

Let us accept it that our nation is ruled by caste right from politics to education to govt jobs to temples...The world will definitely think that the India is the nation where at one end we are boosting about modernization and on the other end people thrive to be born in lower caste.Its the 60th year of independent India and I can still sense the country's every nook n corner ruled by caste right from Kerala to Rajasthan.

Look at India's famous temple in Kerala Guruvayur which didn't allow Sonia Gandhi during Rajiv Gandhi's era to enter temple as she is non-Hindu. Recently when one of the union of minister's family visited the temple, it was purified as his wife was non-Hindu. In fact the temple has a board outside saying tat "ENTRY OF NON-HINDU IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED!!!!" My question is, can't Guruvayur god bless non-Hindu's? does he really has problem? I wish I cud communicate with him!!! I still remember my neighbour of upper caste in the past who was not allowing the maid to enter her kitchen just bcoz god's photos n idols are kept there and the maid is lower caste lady!!! I wish I cud communicate with those photos n idols as do they hav a problem? This is one face of the nation.

Lets come to Rajasthan to see other face of nation where Gurjar's are fighting to an extent that military is called to control the situation..Reason is they are put in to OBC quota...but they want to be in ST!!!! Wooow this is Independent India post 60 years. I feel today lower caste ppl are the most powerful ones as the country thinks twice to touch him/her. They are vote bank for politicians. Look at how a regional party in UP sweeped the seat n formed a govt without coaliting with other parties which is filled with lower caste. 2006 witnessed a major activity by students from all the parts of nation for/against fighting for OBC quota seats in education system!!!!

I wonder if Gandhi Nehru Ambedkar were alive ... wat wud hav been their reaction...

Sir Edwin Arnold once quoted "There is no caste in blood"...but it is in my nation's nook n corner

Who is the heroine?

School days will always have lotz of funfilled memories.........tats true with anybody i guess............I was studying in a residential school when i was doing my middle n high schooling. My school had a student exchange program in class IX. So when I was studying in class IX, in the student exchange program few students from Madyapradesh joined us. Among which one guy was there (i forgot his name...so lets me name him as Mr. X) whom actually my batch gals didn't like (one of the reason was he was not good looking). There were actually 2 sections in my batch in which Mr. X was studying in section B and I was in section A. One sunny afternoon i finished my lunch n was going bak to my class along with my friends in section B. Wel, by nature i chat a lot..........so we were into a deep discussion of wild ambitions which finally ended up me declaring, that I will direct a movie one day. So my pals popped up a question as whom will I casting as hero n heroine in my movie..........I gave a thought for a moment n decided something seriously which went on like this.......I knew that Section B had post lunch class was English, so I said the hero of the movie will be the person who enters last after the entry of english ma'am (English ma'am use to give really tough time to students as she use to ask lot of questions in the class..........So purposely guys use to enter late in the class.......Girls being punctual use prepare well n come on time to class). The heroine of my movie will be the person who answer's madam's question first. By the time i finished my statement we reached our respective class rooms. Post lunch in my class, the teacher was on leave. so we were made to sit in the corridor to study(which actually means keep the story book between the text books n study hard u know..... :-)) Once the first class post lunch got over i was abt get up to get into my class..........but suddenly to my horror, all gals from section B came running to hit me.........i didn't know wat to do.............i just ran out of fear........after running 4 rounds of whole class area....they caught me and started punching me...........The reason was........In section B it was a normal class for boys n english ma'am ......boys as usual came late to class...........n on that day the late latif is Mr. X(the most ugly looking guy)!!!....n as usual english madam started her class...after few minutes of teaching she started asking question.........n as usual any of the boys didn't hav answer to questions..........later she started with gals from first bench............first my frd sindhu got up (the shortest in our batch so first bench student) n started giggling.........then second benchers with similar kind of behaviour..then third..then fourth.......then it went on till last bench.........In last bench there was this gal by name Latha(the most studious, quite, don't bother for world kind of attitude gal)....she answered the question. Other gals got nice scolding from ma'am as they were not answering the question n upon that they were giggling............The reason was they really didn't wanted to become heroine of my movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me myself n gurgaon part II

U must b wondering as y hav I kept this blog's name as Me myself n gurgaon part II......wel the answer is simple aaj kal sequel ka zamana chal raha hai :-)
I finally landed in a city where u get masala dosa@ 60 Rupees. Its a new city, new home, new workplace, new ppl.... I am sure one will be unsure of many things in an alien place. A bit scared, a bit confused, a bit hesitant............but i guess adaptation is human nature according to Charles Darwin so life goes on. But one interesting point what i felt was..when i was in bangalore the percentage of non kannadigas in bangalore really irritated me and the major portion of non kannadigas were tamil n telgu ppl. But now in gurgaon listening ppl who speak tamil n telgu i felt "feel at home" factor:-) strange but true. Since I hav started a living here i can find lot more +ves n -ves of the city. The funniest but strange -ve thing is ppl drive cars n even trucks on foot path similar to 2-wheelers in bangalore!!!!

I remember the two line of good old kannada movie chinnarimuttha's song at this point "esthond jana illi yaru nannoru? eshthond mane illil yelli nammane? yelli yelli nammane? :-)"

One of the reason to shift to gurgaon was to explore the beauty of north india. To accomplish the mission i started my journey by visting akshar dham which is near nizamuddin railway station delhi on mathura road. One word to describe it is SPECTACULAR!!!!!! When i was kid my dad use to take me to tourist places like ajanta ellora, madrai rameshwaram etc....n when ever i visted them i had only one question in my mind .....In the history of my country ppl have come up with superb art n architecture which are 100's n 1000's of year old but y is our generation ppl only intersted in buiding concrete forest? visiting akshardham answered my question as our generation ppl do hav architects who can match up to ancient indian architects. The main temple of swami narayan is worth watch....Its marvelous. The architecture is simply superb, the mantaps..... the pillars.... the tomb its a must watch. Also there is a small presentation of indian history right from the age of vedas to current one in which it says "u name the field n the ppl of our country in the past has done it right from democracy to rocket science n plastic surgery " and at the end of the presentation it gave a message asking our generation to carry the rich heritage in every sense to forward with dignity!!!!

Top Stories……………..

I am a TV Freak……………who loves to watch soaps n cricket matches………..even though exams are there on the very next day. In fact I was a loyal K-Serials (which includes all Ekta Kapoor’s serials…kyunki.., kusum, kasauti…, karam…, kasam…) watcher. I watch all her serials from day one. After 6 long years now I am obsessed :-), but still I watch an episode at least once in a fortnight where in I understand as what has happened in it 15 days back n what will happen in next 15 days. My mum use to always scold me as I watch lot of TV soaps. She use to scold me with extra dose as I don’t watch some useful things like news channel……….But seriously speaking I couldn’t differentiate much between the fictional soaps n real news. If the news headlines have 6 top stories, 5 out of 6 are bad news. It could be bomb blast, accident, political scandal, death sentence (recent news has much of death sentence’s …I wonder whether Indian Judiciary has become finally tough towards the guilty) or India loosing a cricket match. If I sit n watch the nit 9’ O clock news for an hour, I feel I am watching some power packed movie!!!!! Which has lot of political drama, terrorist actions, media hyped celebrity rivalries and a tragic end where in India loosing a cricket match.

In recent news report I saw the political leaders in Karnataka was taking away speaker’s mike n throwing the things that are on his table all over the legislation house. One thing that I don’t understand about politicians is their behavior in legislative houses. Every one would have seen the sessions telecasted live in Doordarshan when we were kids as at that time it was the only option. Thanks to 1000 other channels which saves us from seeing the kinder garden behavior of politicians. In the legislative houses I find Rajyasabha members much descent compared to Loksabha members who literally start of catfights, slogans n never listen to speaker. I really pity on the speaker of the house who keeps shouting whole day n when things goes out of control he just postpones the session!!!!

The other great humans who are always in top stories are our dear terrorists. They keep doing some or the other blasts all over the country on innocent people irrespective of caste, color, culture, mode of transport (bus, train, plane)…u know they treat everyone equally!!!! n will be hitting the headlines for quite a while. Once they fade off from the headlines they again do a major blast, which can be in Kashmir (which is their favorite place) to Assam to Maharashtra to Karnataka. As per Newton’s third law “For every action there is a equal n opposite reaction” the Government of India points its finger just after minutes of blast to our dearest neighbor Pakistan. Police, CBI, Army ends with more or less no conclusion, even after prolonged enquiries. Then again a fresh attack, fresh enquiry n no conclusion n no guilty is punished. If at all by chance some body is caught n found guilty n with great difficulty Indian Judiciary gives an execution order then comes the people, the politicians starts opposing it. Classic example: Hanging of Mohammad Afzal :-)

Next headliner is our bollywood stars. I really pity them, as the rumor around them is stranger than the wildest dreams of any humans. But I guess they get use to tat after one point of time as “Good publicity or bad publicity…a publicity is a publicity” Take an example of baadshah of bollywood Shah Rukh Khan who is sandwiched between the stars who are from his older generation (Mr. Bachan), younger generation (Hrithik). He is constantly compared n the issue is hyped where I guess sky is the limit. One more classic example of media hype is for our own Shilpa Shetty. Post Big brother her every footstep is hitting headlines.And lastly according to media Ms Rai got married to all kind of trees n plants in india including peepal and banana apart from Mr Junior Bachan!!!!!

Last but not the least headliner is the great religion of our nation that makes the whole country crazy about it. Yes…its Cricket. Since I have started loving cricket I am desperate to see Indian cricketers holding the world cup. Hope my dream comes true at least once. The recent emotional drama happened was with our own dada Sourav who was thrown out n taken back n emerged as super hero once he got man of the series reward for his performance in recent series with Sri Lanka.

I wonder what is happening with science n technology of my country as, If I do the microscopic search in news papers I find countable number of articles on them. I remember our prez Mr. Kalam once saying that news paper’s should have good news in the first page as that is the first thing what people read or see in the mornings. But yes, I do understand the pressure of 24X7 news channels as they just cant show only good as there is less drama happening n news wont be sensational. Ultimately if the news is not sensational how will the TRP’s go up? How will they pay their employees? Tell me one thing, aren’t the drama or emotions of tulsi’s, parvati’s or bani’s are much better to watch compared to the news channel’s top stories. End of the day if I feel bad for my soap heroin’s I can console myself by saying afterall its just a fiction. I have read somewhere that Facts are stranger than Fiction………hmm………

When the fence eats the hedge….

Few days’ back my family was returning from a marriage reception in the late evening and suddenly a cop stopped us and asked for lift till his house. Logically that’s ridiculous but yet we did it as he has power. I visited Madurai meenakshi temple few months’ back where I bribed the security officer to get an instant darshan of God. Ethically that’s’ ridiculous but yet I did it because he has power. This may seem as a common thing in our day to day life, but the power of the cop in our country is really taking our country elsewhere.

The recent Nithari killings shook the nation when 26 skulls were found from Lalbagh in Murshidabad town during the excavation of a construction site. The children killed there were from a poor family background and immigrants. More to this, the sting operation carried by tehelka quotes, “The police was paid and were in cahoots with Moninder Singh Pandher. He financed AC IST Class fares and doled out favors. In turn, the law-keepers used powerful connections, even calling the chief minister’s brother to escape punishment. A cover-up is still on”. It is not just in Nithari that children were reported to have been sexually abused. A police constable allegedly raped a 17-year-old girl in Gorakhpur in UP last week. Just few weeks before Nithari killings were discovered, there was media follow up on how Adobe CEO’s son was kidnapped n then rescued. It is still a mystery in this case as whether police rescued him or his family really paid the ransom demanded by the kidnappers. The other major incident happened is J&K fake encounters, where in two senior police officers in connection with the fake encounter killings of at least three persons in the state. A report also says that 1,017 youths in J&K —either detained or arrested by the police—missing since 1990. The investigation is on.

The common people like me, the immigrants in Nithari, 17-year-old girl of Gorakhpur or people of Kashmir; all are the victims of khaki? The bribe, murder, rape, fake encounters, what does all these indicate…fence is eating the hedge……….?

Me Myself n Gurgaon

My first trip to Gurgaon in Haryana made me to do many "My First..." like my first visit to Delhi, my first visit to Qutab Minar, my first on airplane. My biggest dream ever which became partially true as I was sitting in passenger's seat in plane, but always wanted to sit in cockpit n drive away the passengers (not to heaven of course :-)), yes I always wanted to become pilot. It started when I was in my high school. I was studying in a residential school where we use to finish our dinner at around 8:30pm n go to wash our plates. I clearly remember everyday at 8:30pm sharp a flight use to go above my head when I was washing my plate, which always inspired me to make it fly (seems funny ah..). In fact during my high school, we had oral exam for languages like English, Kannada, Hindi every year. There was this Kannada teacher (Some say he is from military background because he uses to punish student in a funny way. He uses to make them face towards the wall n salute the wall!!! (Only for boys :-)) who use to ask same set of questions every year. One among it was, “what is your aim? “ and all the five years my answer was "PILOT". Once I entered college I came to know I was unfit to become pilot because I had an eyesight problem. Never mind everything happens for good :-).

The trip to Gurgaon made me to sit in flight even though I was not flying it. When I returned back many of my friends asked the most expected question “how was your first time in plane?” (They asked this because it is still a big thing for middle class people in India…thanks to indigos n deccans which made common man to travel by air) and my answer was “I felt as if I was sitting in BMTC Volvo and BMTC Volvo had FM Radio n planes don’t have” most of them burst in to a loud laugh

When I was landing in Delhi the view was spectacular. The city n the roads are very much organized unlike my bengalooru. Once I landed over there it was 11:30pm n I was suppose to go to Gurgaon which is just 25 kms. But the traffic was so heavy that to travel 1 km from Delhi airport I took around 20 minutes at 11:30pm night. I just remembered how I used to crib when there was slow moving traffic near KR Puram Bridge during peek hours and felt my bengalooru is better :-). I must say Qutab Minar is a place to visit….wow what an architecture…mind blowing!!!!!

My first visit to Gurgaon educated a lot about this place. Firstly the good things, Roads are too good, best thing is NO pot holes, 6 way lanes, planned city, wonderful buildings, you get to see boat shaped building to perfect rectangle buildings. One of the areas in Gurgaon has more than 5 shopping malls much bigger than our guarda’s and forum’s in the same lane. Now the bad things, first n foremost is weather, which varies from 2 degrees to 50 degree (extreme ah!). Secondly my all time favorite masala dosa costs 60 bucks, which I could not digest. I still remember 12 years back when my dad made a deal for writing an entrance exam for masala dosa, which costed just 7 rupees and I wrote the exam well only because the deal was tempting. I also remember, with 60 bucks how I threw a Benne dosa party for 5 friends of mine, when I topped a semester in engineering (It is still a mystery as how I topped the class even though I was not studios first bench student…na…I was not intelligent either!!). I am planning to make a living in Gurgaon with masaladosa@60 :-).