Open letter to Junta feeling ‪#‎insecure‬ and ‪#‎intolerance‬

To indians who is feeling #insecure :

‪#‎AamirKhan‬, Being the biggest fan of your work I still say having a Hindu wife and living a happy married life for so long is a biggest example of security for you. Hosting satyameva jayate with issue on road accidents and its horrific repercussions and having a best of buddy who did that and still making crores of Indian rupees does that bring security for you? There are communal issues at places but it didn't rise today or yesterday its there much before that and am confused as how you became insecure in just matter of few days?

I am really curious to know from Mr Khan as what has he seen in my country in past 18 months that he has not seen in past 48 years of his life made him suddenly #insecure !!

I would say biggest example of secure and tolerant india is that they appreciated a movie like ‪#‎PK‬ and you made 300+ crore money out of it. Do you have the guts to make a movie on intolerance in your religion and survive for a day anywhere in the world forget my country? I highly doubt that? Remember ‪#‎CharlieHebdo‬ ?

A country with 1.2 billion population with multi ethnic and multi culture surviving peacefully for so many years does that ring a bell.

I am curious to know to where do you want to leave to? Developed nations in Europe, Australia, Russia, US which was recently bombed, facing racial discrimination or to middle east Asia where people's lives are less worthy than a mosquito? All these nations are shooting an eye for an eye making all of them blind. Is my country doing that? When 26/11 happened in ‪#‎mumbai‬ , your city how come you were then not insecure and now you are?

The irony here is the brand ambassador of ‪#‎IncredibleIndia‬ thinks its #insecure !!!

To Indians who feel high #Intolerance:

People who are returning awards, every month of Ramadan my neighbor whose kitchen window opens to my home and cooking beef at 4 am in the morning with endless prayer in mosque with loudspeaker throughout day and night and not complaining once is an example I consider as tolerance. If there are incidents like‪#‎dadri‬ then there are people like us as well. Being 75% + population in this nation and being to pull of successful 68 years of independent India does that say something at least? Have you ever visited Minority dominant area in India and seen their behavior. You should try staying there for a while and see tolerance buddy

I am not saying my country is free from communal issues, they need to be tracked and resolved and I believe the system has always worked towards that in my country. Just because some anti social elements created few incidents doesn't make my ‪#‎HOMELAND‬ insecure or an act of intolerance. Stop aggravating a issue and look around the world what is happening.

Last words to Media in my country, Please pick up more sensible issue then a statement from a irrelevant person and stop asking explanation from PM who formed a government by being voted by majority of 1.2 billion Indians. Respect democracy. Grow up buddies and stop running behind TRPs.

India is a democratic nation, if you have issues work towards resolving.

Do not malign my COUNTRY by calling her #insecure ‪#‎intolerant‬

Yours truly,
‪#‎tolerant‬ ‪#‎proudindian‬

L O V E...

All these days my blogs were about places i saw, but this time its all about humans i have met known seen etc.

These days ppl behavior around me fascinates me alot. There are all kinds of people around us, parents, kids, friends,relatives, colleagues, neighbors, your fav celebrity and a person who sits next to you in bus whom you will never meet in your whole life again..oh the list is endless and their behavior is very interesting.

Coming to human behavior, among all the relations i have seen so far, a parent's love to child is the only selfless love. there is no expectation in return, no grudge held when hurt and still will do and want the best to her child. Can the love be so selfless and pure? I recently saw a 85 year old women serving alcohol to her 67 year old son, just to make him happy, she must have given birth to her son at the age of 15-16, so its been 67 years of pure love, so tat exists!! But there is a catch, its a curse that the child will not love back its parent with equal intensity.

The next important person is your partner, In this country people do love, arranged marriages. Their relationship is a very long journey where it goes through lots of ups and downs,which has love, hate, anger, fight, support, sympathy, care all human emotions. I met a wise man other day who says 70% of Indian couples want to get out of relation, so does it mean the love has run out of its course? I would say yes, but I must appreciate the Indian society where the society norms makes the person to hold on to things till the last string is pulled out, the reasons could be many, it could be child , money or you are so used to your partner that you have a high tolerance to everything and you just go on with the flow. etc

In all the rest of the relations, i feel its mostly give and take, if you are good to me, if you help me in tougher times, if you save me situations its a thankful love which will be strong in initial days and gradually the impact on human mind decreases and over years it remains just as a memory.You will be grateful to the other person and will help that person in need but that thats all, you will not love that person purely.

The most selfish love is, love towards GOD!! Yes, you pray god endlessly, you worship god endlessly, but there is so much selfishness in that love that every time you remember good is when you are in need, you spend hours, days, years in worshiping him so that he does miracle to you, he saves your from troubles, he gives you the best, so i feel tats the most overrated Love :)

Even though we are taught to be kind to poor, love all in schools for as much as 20 years, i feel its just not in human nature tat he love all at all the time selflessly

I can't end the topic without mentioning the last but not the least love which is friendship. That is one relationship which turns more sweet over the period of time. but if there exists a pure friendship between two people no matter what happen in each others life, they always wish best for each other, isn't it the next best love after parent's love?

How many agree?

Me Myself and Gujrat

I am impressed with infrastructure (roads, industries, and lifestyle), discipline in Gujarat specially no non-veg restaurants and liquor shops in major part of the state (Its smuggled in milk exporting vessels but still the crime rates by alcoholics are meager compared to other states), hats off to the governance.

A week long vacation after a long long time was a good break from mechanical life :) and ofc it woke up my writer instinct :) Far from office, household, virtual world and daily soaps :)

A trip along Sourastra mirrored me a reality check of things which I/we are running behind. Major locations visited included Dwaraka, Somnath, Gir, Gandhi’s house in

Porabandar, Gandhi ashram, Akshardham in Ahmadabad.

Gandhi's house and Gandhi's ashram, Wow the simplicity in those places stunned me, those places question every man's obsession towards luxury where in 2 pair of clothes and simple vegetarian food can give u a content life!!!

Highly impressed with somnath and its history. A jyotirlinga to be remembered forever for n number of reasons. There was a 45 mins presentation of history of the Temple, around middle of the story Mohamed Ghazini comes and sweeps of wealth in temple, at tat moment i wondered if god really existed there then y did it allow tat to happen, but at the end of the story the temple was demolished several times and re-constructed. Hence I realized it not about wealth but strength of god to survive there. After so many attempts and today in 21st century it’s still standing there head held high attracting millions of devotees.

Dwaraka and its stories was always heard or seen in television series of Lord krishna, going to visit the lord by sailing in sea was different experience.

Lastly visiting Gir was an eye opener and made me question the man kind for several reasons. Firstly commendable effort by Gir forest authority to bring the lion count from 20+ to 411 in almost 100 years when this species was in the verge of extinct. Secondly good to know that there exists 54 village with various vegetarian tribal’s (yes vegetarian tribal’s) who survive in same forest along with those lions in 300km range. But in reality if they should grow beyond this count than mankind should give them enough space to survive. 

But the million dollar question is what the man kind (specially Indian mankind) should ask themselves is, why so much less space on this earth for anyone other than human species and ofc inside human species the rich has more right to live than poor. But humans are just another living being but since he can think and implement changes, he is driving the world to end by hampering the ecosystem? Humans are acquiring all the landscape, producing toxic elements which earth can’t digest, driving every other species to extinct, where are we going? The so called development is making us crazy tat we can’t differentiate between right and wrong kind of development. Hence the irony is we don’t breathe pure air, drink pure water and earth nutritious food we are on self destruction mode and guess what we are taking the whole planet down with us, though the developed nations and various organizations are working towards making man aware of his heinous crimes, the ground zero is still sleeping with loads of plastics, dirty water, and poisoned food. Sometimes I wonder if we are the ASURAS of kaliyug?

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed - Mahatma Gandhi

Will the real mankind please wakeup? How much ever we say we are the most intelligent species on this earth were we able to stop the meteor shower which happened on

Russia few days back? The universe surely has its way to get back on MANKIND!!

Walked on a hot charcoal!!!

5 years back my confusion was to Go/against the wind

http://swapna-shetty.blogspot.in/2006/12/go-withagainst-wind.html

Today i did walk on the hot charcoal and not once but twice in gap of 3 days :)

Wat made me to do so...so many reasons but mainly a thought/proverb which i heard from one of the fictional character on TV and goes like this

"There is nothing called right or wrong in this world...Its just what you believe in"

Me Myself and Bengalooru

Finally i am bak to the city where in I always wanted to live in :)

It was nostalgic to see cloudy cold morning...sunny afternoon....and raining evenings

but i must agree there is lotz of things have changed in last 3.5 years..........

Good things....

Good to see that in and around majestic area the walls are painted representing rich culture and traditions of karnataka.

Good to see much more effective public transport (believe me the millennium city gurgaon still survives on cycle rickshaw...(corrupt CWG committee are u listening??))

Bad things.....

How much ever I try hard to speak in kannada to local shopkeeper to sales persons in mall to autowallas.......they try to speak in different languages which include english hindi tamil.......grrrrrrrr i hate this part. In europe though england is very near to germany swizz italy compared to india....ppl preferred to speak in native language...y is saat samundar paar mera bharat behave the other way?????

My fav hangout place MG Road's lenght breadth width height hav changed grrrrrrrrr

weather is awesome and feels like heaven after dreadful experience in gurgaon

but i must confess...i miss gurgaon for some strange reason :(

Journey to MOTHERHOOD

Lying on the hospital bed for 48 hrs just waiting for world's deadliest pain was very ironic situation. Doc was frustrated after 2 days of attempt to get labor pain with all the technologies in the world. The last option was to operate...and trust me....that moment when they took me on stretcher to operation theater i felt like getting up and running away from the hospital. Situation was similar to an incident happened couple of months back when i was suppose too show an demo of an application to an end customer sitting at Zurich. Just before minutes to kick off the demo.. .application started behaving the other way. The demo was key point for next payment from customer to my huge team for huge application. I felt like running away at tat moment and this was worse than tat. Within 5 minutes in operation theater i cud here my little angel crying and i felt like that is a dream. when the doc showed me the baby i felt some miracle has happened. I couldn't believe my eyes. i couldn't believe its my baby. When i first took her in my hands i felt that moment was DIVINE. It was more divine than standing on the Mt Titlis @ Switzerland. At that moment i felt how good it is to be a women and felt better than men as men can never get to feel that moment ;). After the operation my body was numb for next 6 hrs. Doc suggested to go to deep sleep and trust me i was planning as what shud i make my daughter....a dancer, astronaut, pilot....hmm the journey of motherhood is very interesting!!!!

Me myself and Native

After 6 long years of working.....a break for natural circumstances is a welcome change. That to the break to be enjoyed with mom and mother nature is a topping on an icecream.

The daily routine included a morning walk, working from home/cyber cafe, eating nutrious food,
watching mother nature etc.

The best part is....there is no honking of tata sumo's early morning, no jhat driving bullet in the
middle of night, no lorry driving around with its horrible sound.

The bearutiful is when u go for a walk in the morning.....u can hear only chirping of birds, those
cycle bells, the calm, fog covered coconut trees instead of fog covered dlf concrete jungle. small
river which is eager to join the sea nearby. It makes ur mind calmer compared to constant honking at traffic signals on the way to office. u feel how much u hav missed things in life :)

The lifestyle, people, even the animals, birds have so much stability in life....no hurry to run as
if to conquer the world, the evening walk from cyber cafe to home make me see so many things. Those traditionals homes lit with light, the tulsi infront of house lit with light, group of ppl doing
bhajans, men returning from work with fresh fish in their hands, birds returning home
enthusiastically. am mesmerized by every small little thing of this small city :)

Love is

Always patient n kind,
never jealous,
never boastful,
nor conceded,
never rude or selfish,
does not take offense,
is not resentful,
takes no pleasure in other people sense, in the delight and truth...

Always ready to excuse, trust, hope ,to endure whatever comes

- Walk to remember

An Evening in Paris

Landing on friday at mid afternoon at Paris est with bunch of friends and lotzzzz of excitement was jittery. The first challenge was to search the hotel(as it is mostly french n little english spoken country), somehow with great research of a friend it made things easy. Luckily the hotel was just few meters away from eiffel....but when i saw the upper half of eiffel from far, the reaction was "i am seriously dissappoionted" i also felt....did i cum so far to see this?? But when i saw the complete view of eiffel i was speechless!!!! And believe me the view from top of eiffel is spectacular....the whole city was so beautiful :) The night view of eiffel is again speechless

The second day trip to disney land was...(no words to express) Entering the disney land made an actual feeling of being in a fantasy land....all the characters which i saw from childhood days came alive in disney land...mickey, miny, alladin, lion king, mermaid, winnie the pooh ...the list goes on...and those scary adventurous rides was mind blowing!!!!


The thrid day trip on sean river to louvre museum just for a glance of mona lisa smile was thrilling....i felt the life got fullfilled after seeing her ;)


The good points:

Most romantic place in the world (PDA rate is very high)

Disney land

Loads of museum with beautiful paintings from 15th century till date

City is alive 24 hrs

Highly fashion consious junta

You can find at least one person playing a beautiful tune with any instrument at every corner

Its luv luv n luv everywhere


Bad points:

City is as dirty as any city in India.

Metro is very old .......and when u take a ride it feels like u r in a adventure ride!!!!

Every place has loooooooong names ex:(Charles de Gaulle - Étoile)

Going to paris from swizz made our impression about ppl more bad as they were not half friendly as swizz pals


But truly in the end its a lifetime experience, no 2 thots abt tat!!!!!!!!!!!

Me Myself and Zurich Part II

Few more points which i got educated here are:

Bata shoes are from swizz

wen u walk on a foot path and meet a swizz person he gives a warm smile n says hi

wen u meet an Indian on the way his expression will be "oh god...u too r here!! y??"

ppl shut their shop completely on sunday ..it looks like sec 144 posed in the city :( ....they shud learn from the grocery shop guy who is infront of my house in delhi....he closes the shop at 1pm and opens at 5 in the morning :)

the guys in my team categorize the local gals into only 2 categories..
1. good looking
2. too good looking

The government literally pampers its citizens by providing best facility in almost everything.

After the first snow in the city it looked like a wonderland of a fairy tale!!!!

All major cities in this country look alike, they hav an old city and a lake in the middle of the city.
Rest of the concrete jungle is built newly everywhere

This is the most peace loving country :) never attacked anyone or being attacked

Last but not the least...this is the costliest country to live in :(

Amazing snap!!!

A picture tells thousand words :)
A smile lightens any moment in life!!!

Slumdog.....

Last year....around same time i watched "TZP" and came out of theatre emotionally and prayed tat i hope we get the oscars this time (and TZP is offical entry to oscars..though it didnt make to final 5 :()................after an year..........browsing through downloadable movie site i did download "SLUMDOG MILLIONARE" and i must confess.........i was on the edge of my seat from first scene to last.............FANTASTIC SCREENPLAY!!! if TZP is the story of every middle class child in india then SM is the story of lowerclass child in india.
The JHAKAAS actor Anil Kapoor has done a JHAKAAS acting in it. The story is abt a slum guy JAMAAL who is a humble tea-maker from the streets of Mumbai who appears on a game show and exceeds people's expectations, raising suspicions from the game show host and law enforcement. The smart thing here is each question asked in the game show has an incident related to his life. Thats y i say fantastic story as well. The only regret i had about this movie is that, i wish an indian director directed it. It is directed by Danny Boyle a british director. A special mention of very good music from our very own A R Rehman is must. He won Golden globe for this and am hoping for oscar as well.It releases in india @ jan 9. Dont miss it!!!!!!!

Me myself n Zurich

Landing in Zurich on a chill nit (1 degree to be specific) with very less ppl in airport was a strange feeling. Landing on the most beautiful part of the earth was actually a dream come true for any brown engineer (tats wat Europeans call us!!). When i landed i remembered a chapter from english school book written by R K Narayan when he visited perth , I quote "The aiport was like a silent movie!!"...ditto in zurich..........apart from my fellow indians and I making some noise pollution.

Zurich is a beautiful city, also shown a lot in my few fav movies like DDLJ and Schindler's list.
Though am still searching for tat famous bridge where SRK and Kajol was dancing as well as Zurich HB railway station's exact spot where in other parts are shot.

Good points abt this good city is:

1-2 out of 1000 kids cry in public places......unlike India (when ever i get into a bus for nit journey the bus will have minimum 2 small kids who cries continuously in short intervals)

Every train has free newspapers which ppl keep reading all the time, or they have book in hand all the time

Every 2nd and 3rd vehicle is Merc and Audi

When there is no traffic signal, and there is a zebra crossing, all the vehicles allow the people to cross first (i am really scared abt this, bcoz when i cum bak to India this habit is a serious problem and cud lead to disastrous consequences, I always thought ppl returning from foreign country try to behave smart, but trust me in case of traffic signal they dont!!!)

The best thing abt this city/country is a single pass is valid in Train,Tramp,Bus

It has the best transport system.

People are very friendly and obsessed with India (no joking!! every one want to cum to GOA)

Highly fashion conscious junta

Every 3rd shop is a watch shop where in the collection includes PAPPU's RADO, Mrs Rai Bachan's Longines and the new kid in the block Ms Deepika Padukone's Tissot. The two ladies are dominating here with their postures.


Bad points:

Not found any yet!!


Dank für das Lesen, sehen Sie bald (Thanks for reading, c u soon)

Me Myself and Gurgaon PART III

I never thought in my dreams tat I will write another sequel :) (I know its no big deal!! but stilll!!!)
anyways generally wen u start living in a new city,within a year u will hav a good idea as what is the city, ppl, weather, culture etc and i concluded tat i know everything about the city after an year there came many tiwsts..

let me just summuraize things
ppl..........its a cosmopoliton city withe a higher flow in of ppl all over the country, u get bihari to mallu to bengali to kashmiri but i must admit as in down south every person over there think tat every north indian is a punjabi irrespective of he is from UP, bihar, rajashtan here in north every person think tat all south indian are madarassis. I know it sounds very funny for every south indian, at times trust me, I feel like, I shud carry a map of india to show the difference between state. If i try to explain them tat kannada, malayalam, tamil telgu are as diff as german french and spanish, they just say.........."aare chod yar sab ek jaisa hi tho hai" .At tat moment its a mixed reaction of mine, I mean am not sure whether to laugh or get angry. This is the story of educated north indian.

Example of uneducated north indian is, these days i go for walk in the morning reason being my last visit to native(where in tons of comment came in abt my weight). There is gardener in the park who the other day came in and askd "u r from which city?".n i replied bangalore..........his next question was "is it towards jaipur or UP?"I was confused as wat to say, then he gave me another option "is it towards mumbai?"I said yes, but still not satisfied, he asked "is it near to or far to mumbai" at last i gave up n answered "its near madrass" he was very much satisfied and walked away with any further questions!!!!

culture............since it is a cosmopolitan city, u can either don't follow any protocol of ur religion/caste/sub caste entirely or can follow cross culture traditions. City is quite fast.......as all metros of India. Get up,try to do workout,stand on roads early morning to wait for ur transport,come to work,work till 5:30 pm,run bak to catch ur transport. I mean its tat the youth of the country spends an avg of 4 hrs on the roads of the city, how unproductive!! I guess our PM shud think of something for this :)

Last but not the least the weather, u can call it a 8th wonder, a miracle anything tat explains extreme. Guess wat, its raining here from past 3 months. U may be thinking so wat.This is the season here where in the temp shud hav reached 50 degree but its just ranging from 25-35. I askd the local guys as after how many years its happening,.many are unaware,.some say 18 yrs, some say 6 yrs, some say wen i was in school it happd so (though i know i am the only one in the world who thinks like this, still thanks to global warming as it is doing something good somewhere :))




*

Terror strikes!!

A nation with 1.13 billion people ....what is the first question which pops up in our minds when terror strikes......WHO died and WHO did it...the only question for which we know the answer is WHY!!

One year, one month, 13 days

After One year, one month, 13 days long time i finally landed in my blore. Though the stay was just for 9 jam packed days...........i made a chk on all of my favourite things to do before landing.......which had a top item on the list as eating as many dosa as possible :)) bcoz eating masala dosa@ 60 with horrible chutney has made my eagerness more to eat the orginal one. Surprisingly the second item in my list was to get the kannada song CD's!!!!!!!! yes it right.......though i have seen only 1 kannada movie in cinema hall in whole of my stay in blore........the distance to my mother land suddenly increased my love to kannada movies!!! I wonder whether it will vanish after i shift my base bak to blore...may be yes......hmm. The third item was eat the fresh fish/prawns in native which are just out of SEA.... n list went on.

Landing in blore made a special feeling as i got out of gurgaon with 43degree temp and reached blore where its just 30+ on that day .......it felt wooooow..but my happiness didnt last long as the very next day wen i reached native in mangalore n it was burning n humid.......n lot of wedding n functions to attend.......imagine wearing 2-3kg kanchivaram saree with accessories!! n while attending the function everyone has one suggestion........"pls dont put on more weight"...isn't it diplomatic way to say........."u hav reached the threshold!!"

met couple of friends.....who also hav put on ...so i was thinking may age factor is the culprit to put on the weight.......oh god i am getting old!!

Kite Runner

When was the last time i cried reading a book till recently (I know our generation hardly read any books these days!).........i seriously don't remember!!! but today i know the answer.......its KITE RUNNER written by Khaled Hosseini. One word to discribe it is fantabulous!!! The next obvious question is wat is so spl about the book. My answer would be........... Read it to feel it :) ............jokes apart!! Its a story about friendship, cowardice, betrayal n last but not the least REDEMPTION.


Its a tale of two friends in boyhood aamir n hassan, a rich n a poor. Such things matter little to the boys. However, Amir's father, is concerned about his son. He sees in Amir a child who will not stand up for himself or what is right. Hassan, however, will not back down despite his diminutive size. Amir's father's concerns are proven valid when Amir sees an act of violence on Hassan by local bullies, but does not act. Later, he seeks to relieve the guilt not by seeking forgiveness but by acting deceitfully to get Hassan dismissed from his father's service.
Later russian invasion happens in Afghanistan which makes aamir to leave his hometown to flee to US. More than 20 years later, Amir is a newly-minted author living in California with his wife. He receives a call from an old friend, who urges him to return to Afghanistan. Amir is initially reluctant but eventually agrees. What he learns when he arrives not only shakes the steady foundations of his sense of family but forces him to undertake a risky mission as a way of repaying his debt to Hassan, who never once blamed Amir for turning his back.


I must say Kahled is an amazing story teller. Splendid writing!!! A MUST READ!!!

Every child is special!!!

I know I am writing abt TZP after almost a month of its release............but i am still having the effect of the movie on me!!

No doubt I am die hard fan of aamir n was very curious to see his debut direction!! n he never led my (infact whole world's) expectations down!!

The last time the movie inspired me to sit n write the blog was RDB n no doubt the feeling evaporated in few days before i was about to sit n start writing ;)

wats so spl abt TZP ? the answer is quite simple..........it make u feel understand n conclude tat every child is really special irrespective of it is good/bad at
looks, studies, athletcis, painting , dancing, singing etc.

I guess every one(at least indian) cud connect to it....as he/she had tat kind of childhood or had seen it happening to their siblings or friends.Though not every one cried out seeing the movie i can bet tat an emotional chord did strike wen they saw the movie.

Hats off to Aamir!!!

I must say one thing which my spiderman's fav quote "great responsibility comes along with great power!!" so hoping to see his next venture at next level(of course upwards!!)

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 :)