Hotel Tsaritsino, Moskva,
24-07-2010, 23:09
The cab touches my hotel at 0730 tomorrow.
I have to attend to my professional assignment at 0815. I have been left tired, bruised and sore after a 2 day trip to Dmitrovsky Pogost.
Yet, what inspires me to write is the underlying fear that tomorrow may not be as beautiful as today and tomorrow’s difficulties may overpower the joy of the last two days.
Somewhere on Profsoyuznaya Street, Moskva,
22-07-2010, 14:38
I was feeling a little sick because of the unusual heat in Moscow, aggravated by the absence of a fan in my hotel. The hotel people probably never anticipated the heat wave.
The office was a big relief because of the AC. I was already dreaming of a relaxed Saturday and a quiet Sunday where I would do nothing & sit like a rock.
Every 6 hours, I would get up to cook something and then get back to the being a rock.
The dream suddenly snapped, Sankar offered that we should make a trip to his fiancée’s country home. Initially I was a little skeptical, thinking of things that general urban idiots think of.
For me, lying like a stone was very important and relieving.
Then Amit pushed.. and when the boss asks, you don’t deny.
I am glad I didn’t. And you’ll soon know why.
Hotel Tsaritsino, Moskva,
23-08-2010, 0600
The alarm rings, like a robot instructed to wake up, I get going. Run to the kitchen, make some Indian breakfast , pack it in the box and head to the metro with Amit.
At Kolomenskaya metro we meet Sudarshan, Divya, Jaspreet, Kiran, Sankar, Natasha, Marina & Natasha Ivanova.
For ease of understanding, let me codename Sankar’s Natasha as N1 and my colleague Natasha as N2.
We buy lots of water at & start the train journey, the heat was getting to us, but slowly the body adjusted, and the country scenery whizzing past only added to the pleasure.
We reached a place called Shatura (N1’s mom tells us that this is very famous for wood and furniture).
The place was looking good and calm, but the way to an Indian’s heart is definitely through his stomach and there was a McD just 50 mtrs away.
Jaspreet and I started making hungry noises, Sankar like a responsible father goaded us to move on.
We then boarded a mini van and made our way ahead to the village.
Pine trees on both sides, a winding and traffic-free countryside road, what else could a city-bred idiot wish for?
This was really beginning to inspire me! I wondered, if the prelude was so good, what would the main course hold for me?
Dmitrovsky Pogost village,
150 kms south east of Moscow.
Few minutes later, we reached N1’s home.
It was over a hundred years old. An old wooden house, very beautiful in structure and in location.
From the inside it just reminded me of my great grandfather’s home that I had seen in pictures. Very nice and cosy.
We were a little dirty, so we got a garden hose and without thinking much started it and the freezing cold water hit Sudarshan first, then Jaspreet and then me, but we enjoyed it.
We made a barbeque and had a wonderful time.
The vegetarian barbeque took a while longer and much to the chagrin of vegans like Amit, Sudarshan and others, the potatoes did not come out that well.
Meanwhile N2 was waiting for someone who could eat meat and me and Jaspreet jumped! This was after a long while since we were denied food at McD’s :P
We were hungry, had our hearts content and set out for a walk.
I had a badminton racquet in my hand which came in handy for killing the flies and mosquitoes.
We were trying to reach the river. The vegetation grew and so did the mosquitoes and blood sucking parasites.
The pine trees towered 50 feet over us on each side and the mosquitoes surrounded us!
The racquet could help only to an extent, there were red marks of bites on all our bodies. Huffing, puffing and jumping like Jitender we reached the river, or rather a rivulet, or maybe a canal, or say just a water stream.
[TRIVIA : Jitender was an Indian film actor who was famous for jumping and dancing]
Vladimir(N1’s cousin jumped and swam effortlessly, Amit followed, but stopped at the shore, me and Sid braved our instincts and said.. why not!
In the river, we drenched ourselves in mud, when we came out, we looked like two fat bears.
Black, huge & hairy. The mud had piled everywhere on us.
We somehow washed ourselves, but we were still very very dirty. My white and green shots had turned black and black. Once I came out, I realized I had cut my feet somewhere, and I was bleeding.
The sight was a little overwhelming while the pain was not.
But N1’s mom just did something that amazed me. She took the bicycle and rode up at least 4 kms and back just to get me an antiseptic and a band-aid.
I was touched, but couldn’t thank her much because of my language issues and I did not want someone to translate because it was not an official matter.
Once back home, I had a numbing cold water shower to clean myself, but the shorts I had worn were beyond repair.
Went in, had some rest.
When I came out after an hour, I saw my shorts on a cloth line almost white and green again!
Puzzled, I enquired and Kiran told me that Marina(N1’s mom) had washed it clean.
I don’t know what went through me, I was feeling like a kid. She took care of us more like a mother than like a host.
I was touched.
Somwhere in the Dmitrovsky Pogost village,
24-07-2010, 00:30
N2 went to sleep, however we all thought we should be having some fun. So we went out for a walk.
There N1 had called a friend of hers, Julia who played guitar.
It was 1 am in the night and we all eagerly sat like children in a row on the road in front of her.
That was the last time we felt reality that night.
Once she started singing and playing the guitar, we were all taken into a different world altogether.
She sang Russian, but music has no barriers they say.
We connected at a level which was way beyond watching or listening to an artiste on television or movies.
I could not believe the talent that was being showcased. It was an out of the world experience.
The songs were all wonderful and her voice – SURREAL.
I have never seen a better singer.
On the bed, Dmitrovsky Pogost,
24-07-2010 07:00
My alarm rings.
Amit : “Hey Akshay, get up man”
Me : “Amit, nobody is up, what will we do.. lets keep sleeping for some more time”
Amit : ”Damn.. I think I have become old, because old people sleep less”
Me : “Oh no, don’t worry… by the way.. look at Sudarshan, going by your theory, he must a 6 month old baby then!”
We all have breakfast a while later and proceed to Belayaozra lake.
All through, I was expecting this to be a secluded lake with little human activity.
Once we reached there, we saw a bikini clad sea of humanity!
This part of the world, the crowd really enjoys sun bathing! It looked no less that a mini Goa or a Miami.
We were all eager to jump in.
I was a little skeptical because of my cuts and bruises, but then it was a fresh water lake and I wasn’t able to resist myself any longer. Took the dive and never wanted to come back.
All of us had a whale of a time playing throw-ball in the water. It was a superlative afternoon spent. We went in, came out, again went in and had multiple rounds of dips.
Very refreshed through the soul and tired through the body we came back home at 5 in the evening and started our trip back home.
Back in Moskva, in my hotel, the comfort and environ is something else, the 1 centimeter mosquitoes are gone, there are no flies.
What there is, is a bath tub, some neatly arranged utensils in the kitchen and a nicely set up living room.
But still there is something amiss.
That thing is a human’s connect with nature.
All of us are so tied up in the daily race that we indulge in, that we forget the smaller joys of life. We had our heart’s fill of these joys in the last 2 days and I have to thank Sankar for that.
I have to thank Natasha who let us in to her wonderful home. We were a bit clumsy because we were too many in number, but never did we even once feel out of place.
Natasha’s mom was the perfect host. She took care of us all to such a degree that we all started feeling at home from day one. She made it a home away from home for all of us.
We would never have imagined being at such comfort in a Russian village 5000 kilometers away from India.
It was a weekend that all of us would remember for a long long time to come.It was Russian countryside explored like very few people had done.
At least like very few Indians had done.
To us, it was a gift, a gift – From Russia with love.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Ye ishq nahi aasan
"Ye ishq nahi aasaan,
bas samajh lijiye, ek aag ka darya hai aur doob ke jaana hai."
This is a very very profound riddle.
aag ka darya is fine, but doob ke kahan jaana hai? Thats a riddle. The story does not end at a happy love story. There is life after that, a marriage, an afterlife which isnt easy to comprehend.
Kitni door tak jaana hai? Thats also unsanswered.
How far can you stretch and allow your instincts to be elastic?
I think ishq is a never ending battle with yourself and balancing the world around.
bas samajh lijiye, ek aag ka darya hai aur doob ke jaana hai."
This is a very very profound riddle.
aag ka darya is fine, but doob ke kahan jaana hai? Thats a riddle. The story does not end at a happy love story. There is life after that, a marriage, an afterlife which isnt easy to comprehend.
Kitni door tak jaana hai? Thats also unsanswered.
How far can you stretch and allow your instincts to be elastic?
I think ishq is a never ending battle with yourself and balancing the world around.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Call of the wild
Finally, after a lot of postponements, we managed the Kanha trip.
It was supposed to be in April, then May, but June clicked and we were on our way.
We reached Nagpur in the morning on 17th June and then proceeded to Kanha by road. The journey was about 260 kms, but the road was quite good and our driver quick.
The sky was overcast and it has rained quite a bit in the last 24 hours.
I was cursing myself for choosing June because of the probable rains. They could spoil the whole wildlife sojourn.
Praying, we started from Nagpur, but the prayers were going unanswered. It started raining hard. The speed of our vehicle went drastically down, this kept happening on and off till we were in Maharashtra.
On the way, we stopped at MPTDC resort at Rookhad, pretty ordinary stuff. If you have had nothing for breakfast/lunch, then probably you can halt there, but don’t expect something extraordinary.
When we cleared the Maharashtra border, the skies started clearing, by the time we reached the Khatia gate of Kanha national park, the sun was shining on us, though very softly.
Finished the formalities of signing the registers, asked the man at the gate if the evening safari was available, he said it was.
He also said that it had been closed for the last 2 and half days due to heavy rains. I thanked heavens and stepped back into my car.
Then we checked into Baghira log huts, the resort maintained by MPTDC.
The best thing is that there are AC rooms available.
The good thing is that the view isn’t bad (though the view is strictly not comparable to the Old FRH at Corbett)
The things I was unhappy about include quite a few.. the resort is just technically inside the jungle, so you don’t get the real wild feeling, there is a petrol pump bang opposite the resort.
Nevertheless, it has lots of Sal trees around.
The food is decent, not much in terms of variety, but decent in terms of quality, don’t expect exotic dishes, its daily Indian fare.
If you are a wildlife enthusiast, you would anyway be hardly bothered about food.
Day 1 – Evening Safari :
We managed to catch the safari on Day 1 at 330 pm, despite the rains on the way from Nagpur.
The jeeps (maruti gypsies) line up outside the gate before entry to the park.
One thing that sucked : because of the heavy rains in the prior days, the gypsies took a single route inside the park, so for a long time, you will find gypsies travelling in a line and this in a word is ‘D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R’ for tiger sighting.
And as expected, we did not see any tigers that day.
But I was pretty happy, that I managed to capture a lot of other fauna on my camera. That, as much as tigers is important to me.
Lots of times, most people do not give an animal its worth.
For example, the deer, which is the main meal for a tiger, is just not noticed by people.
Just try and get close to one of them, they will give you some of the best poses to click. Their jerky movement, the big, expressive eyes, make them a sight to behold.
The Barasingha (unique only to Kanha) is now on the endangered list with just 350 of them remaining.
The park officials have made a separate enclosure for breeding them.
Good initiative.
We spotted the Gaur (Indian bison), lots of peacocks, spotted deer, barking deer and the Barasingha.
The peacocks were kind enough to give some royal poses.
Day2 – Morning Safari :
One thing which I mentioned earlier as irritating, continued. The single route which all gypsies followed.
Most animals stay in a particular area for a few days at least, so but obviously we were constantly being deprived of the chance to watch the other diverse life of the park.
Most of the times, it was the same places we saw the same animals.
Me, my wife and my sister-in-law were having more fun today though. The mood was relaxed, we were passing through the same routes and we were chit-chatting.
All this ended suddenly, the other jeep with our friends in it, came hurtling towards us at break neck speed.
He indicated, we turned back and sped. We knew it was the tiger.
No other animal in the country commands such attention, our driver drove at amazing speeds, his old gypsy, though a little creaky, revved up pretty well.
Ina few seconds we were at the spot, I couldn’t see anything.
Me : “Where is it?”
My Wife : “I am able to see it, woooooww!! Give me the camera.”
SIL : “Where is it ?”
Perplexed, me and my SIL looked at each other, making faces.
Then the driver, pointed, “look carefully behind the grass, can you see now??”
Then I noticed, the amazing sight of nature’s wonder.
A small, about an year old tiger, maybe 3-4 feet in length was sitting calmly.
The colour of his skin was magnificent, it hadn’t turned yellow yet, it was kind of deep yellow tending to orange with black stripes.
I was so lost and engrossed, my wifey said : Click man… what’s wrong with you?
Then I realized and brought my camera.
But the damn auto focus mode, it was focussing on the grass rather than the camouflaged tiger.
In the meanwhile, the word spread, about 20 gypsies zeroed in on the spot where we were standing.
The din was too much for the barely mature tiger.
He just quietly stood up, turned back, gave us a good view and disappeared into the bushes.
A few minutes later, we could hear the growls of the kid, they sounded a little weird, but the guide told us that he was calling out for his mother.
There was still a bit of disappointment that none of us could capture it on cam because of the bushes, the camouflage and the failing light, but the glint in our eyes made up for the lost light.
We had just meandered a little ahead when our guide signalled the driver to stop.
The langoors were calling, he said that there is a cat around, but we did not know which one.
He said it could be the tigress mother. The hearts started pounding again in anticipation.
Looking at our gypsy, many others too stopped.
We got our binoculars out, and I got my telephoto lens out. This time, I did not want to miss it.
Then the guide pointed to a tree, we saw 2 leopards perched comfortably there.
One went into hiding in the thick foliage.
But the second one, like God, gave us a very good darshan, it moved around on the tree, showed us its back ( :P ), then looked through the eyes, then gave the side view, scratched itself on the bark of the tree. All this was a good 100 feet away from us, but since it was on a tree, we had a feast!
I clicked to my heart’s content.
The smile on my wife’s and sil’s face was something which I cherish even now!
I am a wildlife enthusiast, but for their sake, I wanted them to sight something in reality. They got really fascinated.
We stopped at a small eatery in the Kanha range, there was a museum as well.
It was a safari well spent!
The ‘tiger-on-cam’ disappointment was lingering, but the other events made sure we had a happy lunch!
Day – 2 : Afternoon safari :
After spotting the first tiger, we were anticipating a little too much.
But this was a real stress buster safari!
This time we were relaxed a little more, more observant to the sounds of the jungle.
The breeze cooled as the clouds drew in again. We feared another shower, but it remained just good.
The fauna in the jungle was also relaxed, this was a ‘feel-good’ safari.
It ended like that.
Had a nice dinner and then a game of cards and dumb charades at the room.
We were waiting for the last safari the next morning.
Day – 3 : Morning Safari :
We were up at 4 am, the driver was punctual, he landed at our door at 430 AM.
We were at the Kisli gate by 445 AM, ours were the first 2 jeeps.
This day, we told the driver, take the route not frequented by anyone. We just wanted to enjoy the nature in our last trip.
We had barely travelled 10 minutes when a familiar din surrounded us.
Our guide said, it can only be a tiger, there cannot be such a crowd for anything else.
Excited, we drew closer.
It was a full blooded full grown adult male tiger sleeping.
We were a little perplexed, it looked dead because of the posture.
The legs were folded, facing the sky, lying on the back, face to the sky.
Then we saw its belly furiously breathing away.. and we heaved a sigh of relief!
The guide told us that there this tiger wont wake up because its immensely tired and only then do they sleep like this.
This is when they are least bothered. We were too close for comfort, at the maximum about 5 feet away. We were clicking incessantly.
But here, I was hugely disappointed because people were using flashes. I really don’t understand why they do this.
Probably they don’t know how to turn it off
Anyways I had my fill of close up shots! About 50 pics and a few HD videos.
Then he turned, looked at us .. I froze, and then he dozed off again.
All this on HD video!! I was thrilled!
Then the rest of the safari, everything looked beautiful, the gaurs, deer, jackals and peacocks all had their magic!
We had a final lunch in Baghira log huts, and bid farewell to this wonderful place with a lot of fond memories and a treasure of pics and videos!
This trip did not disappoint us at all.
Some pics below :
.jpg)
.jpg)
It was supposed to be in April, then May, but June clicked and we were on our way.
We reached Nagpur in the morning on 17th June and then proceeded to Kanha by road. The journey was about 260 kms, but the road was quite good and our driver quick.
The sky was overcast and it has rained quite a bit in the last 24 hours.
I was cursing myself for choosing June because of the probable rains. They could spoil the whole wildlife sojourn.
Praying, we started from Nagpur, but the prayers were going unanswered. It started raining hard. The speed of our vehicle went drastically down, this kept happening on and off till we were in Maharashtra.
On the way, we stopped at MPTDC resort at Rookhad, pretty ordinary stuff. If you have had nothing for breakfast/lunch, then probably you can halt there, but don’t expect something extraordinary.
When we cleared the Maharashtra border, the skies started clearing, by the time we reached the Khatia gate of Kanha national park, the sun was shining on us, though very softly.
Finished the formalities of signing the registers, asked the man at the gate if the evening safari was available, he said it was.
He also said that it had been closed for the last 2 and half days due to heavy rains. I thanked heavens and stepped back into my car.
Then we checked into Baghira log huts, the resort maintained by MPTDC.
The best thing is that there are AC rooms available.
The good thing is that the view isn’t bad (though the view is strictly not comparable to the Old FRH at Corbett)
The things I was unhappy about include quite a few.. the resort is just technically inside the jungle, so you don’t get the real wild feeling, there is a petrol pump bang opposite the resort.
Nevertheless, it has lots of Sal trees around.
The food is decent, not much in terms of variety, but decent in terms of quality, don’t expect exotic dishes, its daily Indian fare.
If you are a wildlife enthusiast, you would anyway be hardly bothered about food.
Day 1 – Evening Safari :
We managed to catch the safari on Day 1 at 330 pm, despite the rains on the way from Nagpur.
The jeeps (maruti gypsies) line up outside the gate before entry to the park.
One thing that sucked : because of the heavy rains in the prior days, the gypsies took a single route inside the park, so for a long time, you will find gypsies travelling in a line and this in a word is ‘D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R’ for tiger sighting.
And as expected, we did not see any tigers that day.
But I was pretty happy, that I managed to capture a lot of other fauna on my camera. That, as much as tigers is important to me.
Lots of times, most people do not give an animal its worth.
For example, the deer, which is the main meal for a tiger, is just not noticed by people.
Just try and get close to one of them, they will give you some of the best poses to click. Their jerky movement, the big, expressive eyes, make them a sight to behold.
The Barasingha (unique only to Kanha) is now on the endangered list with just 350 of them remaining.
The park officials have made a separate enclosure for breeding them.
Good initiative.
We spotted the Gaur (Indian bison), lots of peacocks, spotted deer, barking deer and the Barasingha.
The peacocks were kind enough to give some royal poses.
Day2 – Morning Safari :
One thing which I mentioned earlier as irritating, continued. The single route which all gypsies followed.
Most animals stay in a particular area for a few days at least, so but obviously we were constantly being deprived of the chance to watch the other diverse life of the park.
Most of the times, it was the same places we saw the same animals.
Me, my wife and my sister-in-law were having more fun today though. The mood was relaxed, we were passing through the same routes and we were chit-chatting.
All this ended suddenly, the other jeep with our friends in it, came hurtling towards us at break neck speed.
He indicated, we turned back and sped. We knew it was the tiger.
No other animal in the country commands such attention, our driver drove at amazing speeds, his old gypsy, though a little creaky, revved up pretty well.
Ina few seconds we were at the spot, I couldn’t see anything.
Me : “Where is it?”
My Wife : “I am able to see it, woooooww!! Give me the camera.”
SIL : “Where is it ?”
Perplexed, me and my SIL looked at each other, making faces.
Then the driver, pointed, “look carefully behind the grass, can you see now??”
Then I noticed, the amazing sight of nature’s wonder.
A small, about an year old tiger, maybe 3-4 feet in length was sitting calmly.
The colour of his skin was magnificent, it hadn’t turned yellow yet, it was kind of deep yellow tending to orange with black stripes.
I was so lost and engrossed, my wifey said : Click man… what’s wrong with you?
Then I realized and brought my camera.
But the damn auto focus mode, it was focussing on the grass rather than the camouflaged tiger.
In the meanwhile, the word spread, about 20 gypsies zeroed in on the spot where we were standing.
The din was too much for the barely mature tiger.
He just quietly stood up, turned back, gave us a good view and disappeared into the bushes.
A few minutes later, we could hear the growls of the kid, they sounded a little weird, but the guide told us that he was calling out for his mother.
There was still a bit of disappointment that none of us could capture it on cam because of the bushes, the camouflage and the failing light, but the glint in our eyes made up for the lost light.
We had just meandered a little ahead when our guide signalled the driver to stop.
The langoors were calling, he said that there is a cat around, but we did not know which one.
He said it could be the tigress mother. The hearts started pounding again in anticipation.
Looking at our gypsy, many others too stopped.
We got our binoculars out, and I got my telephoto lens out. This time, I did not want to miss it.
Then the guide pointed to a tree, we saw 2 leopards perched comfortably there.
One went into hiding in the thick foliage.
But the second one, like God, gave us a very good darshan, it moved around on the tree, showed us its back ( :P ), then looked through the eyes, then gave the side view, scratched itself on the bark of the tree. All this was a good 100 feet away from us, but since it was on a tree, we had a feast!
I clicked to my heart’s content.
The smile on my wife’s and sil’s face was something which I cherish even now!
I am a wildlife enthusiast, but for their sake, I wanted them to sight something in reality. They got really fascinated.
We stopped at a small eatery in the Kanha range, there was a museum as well.
It was a safari well spent!
The ‘tiger-on-cam’ disappointment was lingering, but the other events made sure we had a happy lunch!
Day – 2 : Afternoon safari :
After spotting the first tiger, we were anticipating a little too much.
But this was a real stress buster safari!
This time we were relaxed a little more, more observant to the sounds of the jungle.
The breeze cooled as the clouds drew in again. We feared another shower, but it remained just good.
The fauna in the jungle was also relaxed, this was a ‘feel-good’ safari.
It ended like that.
Had a nice dinner and then a game of cards and dumb charades at the room.
We were waiting for the last safari the next morning.
Day – 3 : Morning Safari :
We were up at 4 am, the driver was punctual, he landed at our door at 430 AM.
We were at the Kisli gate by 445 AM, ours were the first 2 jeeps.
This day, we told the driver, take the route not frequented by anyone. We just wanted to enjoy the nature in our last trip.
We had barely travelled 10 minutes when a familiar din surrounded us.
Our guide said, it can only be a tiger, there cannot be such a crowd for anything else.
Excited, we drew closer.
It was a full blooded full grown adult male tiger sleeping.
We were a little perplexed, it looked dead because of the posture.
The legs were folded, facing the sky, lying on the back, face to the sky.
Then we saw its belly furiously breathing away.. and we heaved a sigh of relief!
The guide told us that there this tiger wont wake up because its immensely tired and only then do they sleep like this.
This is when they are least bothered. We were too close for comfort, at the maximum about 5 feet away. We were clicking incessantly.
But here, I was hugely disappointed because people were using flashes. I really don’t understand why they do this.
Probably they don’t know how to turn it off
Anyways I had my fill of close up shots! About 50 pics and a few HD videos.
Then he turned, looked at us .. I froze, and then he dozed off again.
All this on HD video!! I was thrilled!
Then the rest of the safari, everything looked beautiful, the gaurs, deer, jackals and peacocks all had their magic!
We had a final lunch in Baghira log huts, and bid farewell to this wonderful place with a lot of fond memories and a treasure of pics and videos!
This trip did not disappoint us at all.
Some pics below :
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.jpg)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
....
The human begins to expect too much too fast.
A man may suffer 100 reverses in 100 days, but the moment he comes out positive on the 101st day, he thinks he can break any barrier.. or even cross an ocean maybe!
A man, who is barely into a nice little friendship with a girl for about 6 months... thinks she should call him his best friend just because she tells him everything she does and tells him everything quite frankly.
But then, he never knows if what he was getting to hear everyday from her was because she really considered him her 'best' friend or just because there was nobody else around whom she felt she could converse with.
May be, in her bucket of friends you probably figure in the bottom part, where the water generally is cold.
Some relations are cold where you don't talk or interact, some warmer, where you greet when you meet, but forget them when you don't.
These are relations which are easier to maintain and where you don't suffer heartburn when things don't go the way you want them to.
But, there are relations, sometimes not the 'bloodlined' ones, where you want things to happen in a certain fashion.. but then you forget that a bloodline is a bloodline... no matter what.
The result : You fall against your nose and the other person does not understand nor realize.
You just have to get up, smile, brush off the dirt and move.
A man may suffer 100 reverses in 100 days, but the moment he comes out positive on the 101st day, he thinks he can break any barrier.. or even cross an ocean maybe!
A man, who is barely into a nice little friendship with a girl for about 6 months... thinks she should call him his best friend just because she tells him everything she does and tells him everything quite frankly.
But then, he never knows if what he was getting to hear everyday from her was because she really considered him her 'best' friend or just because there was nobody else around whom she felt she could converse with.
May be, in her bucket of friends you probably figure in the bottom part, where the water generally is cold.
Some relations are cold where you don't talk or interact, some warmer, where you greet when you meet, but forget them when you don't.
These are relations which are easier to maintain and where you don't suffer heartburn when things don't go the way you want them to.
But, there are relations, sometimes not the 'bloodlined' ones, where you want things to happen in a certain fashion.. but then you forget that a bloodline is a bloodline... no matter what.
The result : You fall against your nose and the other person does not understand nor realize.
You just have to get up, smile, brush off the dirt and move.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
The speed of death - is decided by the man himself
The man physically, is probably one of the weakest multi-cellular creature to have walked the earth.
While a lion has might, the cheetah - speed, lizards - camouflage, birds - flight, elephants - the heft, the man has none of these physical assets.
The speed is paltry with two weak legs, the strength - the lesser mentioned the better. The strongest of wrestlers would be sitting ducks to a lion or a croc.
But what we have is a 300 gram network of 'intestine-looking' bunch of wires. This neural network surpasses any strength possessed by any creature on earth, a fact misused most of the times by humans to dominate the planet.
The man for long has misused this intelligence to hunt/poach and kill the other beings on this planet so that he is secure.
Once the man is secure, the number of people on this planet rises to unimaginable proportions.
To serve the needs of the hordes of people, barbaric jungle law of 'might-is-right' will not work in the human scenario.
Therefore, the civility which is more 'acquired' than genetic steps in and saves the mankind.
The mankind does business, grows crops, sells natural resources and advances technology to build better lasting businesses. All this, to fill the stomachs of 6 billion hungry people.
Technology is a huge catalyst in determining a country's business doing capability.
And who better than USA and Russia fit this bill.
They literally tore into the world's economic scenario post world war-2, when global liberalization took centrestage.
In the relentless pursuit of advancement of technology, the human has created things which are 'beyond compare'.
No doubt, these are things that the modern man uses everyday to further his business interests, build faster and stronger travel methods.
The aeroplane is one such invention that epitomizes everything that is intelligent.
This machine, a complex hard winding of about 30 kms of cable, huge propellers and the mighty engines is but anything that the common man understands.
All the common man knows is the airfare is high during the peak season and low during off season. If I travel now, I get a better deal, else I burn a hole in my pocket.
The wise say, courtship is far less complex than marriage because the former just is a planning phase, a visualization of the rosy future-to-be, a pre-cursor to the life that would be so different from now.
But marriage is when the execution of plans start, the nitty gritties which need to be worked every hour, minute and second to ensure that the machine is well-oiled.
The moment, you forget to oil a part, it creaks, you ignore, and it crashes.
Aeroplanes are not much different.
Like countless Indians, I was shocked and dismayed at yesterday's AI flight crash disaster in Mangalore.
Initial reports suggest it was pilot error because of which the plane landed much beyond the landing zone on the runway.
The result, a hundred and sixty innocent lives lost.
Technological innovation conceptualized is always rosy... but unlike what people think, it takes a lot of attention to detail that keeps the execution smooth.
I will not harp on the tragic loss, but I will salute the thousands of aircraft maintenance engineers, the ATC controllers and the pilots who perform their duty with full sincerity. A lot depends on them.
May they be bestowed with the best of health and alertness which will help them avert disasters like these.
This only again proves the point in one of my earlier posts that Death is above all truths and supercedes everything else in the universe.
In the never ending mayhem that we create to be fitter, faster and stronger, we will at many occasions be at the receiving end.
At the very end now, I would only present 2 view-points to you :
One :
At present it takes 11 days to build a 737 aircraft with about 5800 airplane unit hours of work.
This is the same one which crashed yesterday in Mangalore. There was nothing wrong with the aircraft.
This is victory for the mankind in terms of technology.
Two :
22nd May, 2010, 6:02 AM
The plane lands safely, (Mohan, a passenger with his family coming from Dubai, tells them : "Once we take the luggage from the belt, we'll head straight to the taxi stand, I just cant wait to get to my home town"
His 8 year old son says : "Dad, but then the taxis..."
Booooom.
The fuselage of the plane splits into two, the cockpit separates leaving behind mounds of burning wires and freewheels into a deep gorge.
The rest of the plane hurtles to the same destiny.
The passengers seated in the front row can see the road beneath them whizzing backward at speeds of 200 km/h.
Suddenly a globe of fire blasts through the whole passage incinerating everything in its way.
A passeger manages to jump from the crack in the plane, falls to the ground only to see the huge back black wheel of the aircraft hurtling towards him .. he closes his eyes on the ground.)*
This is the speed of death.
And it has been decided by the man himself.
* The above is just a rendition of the disturbance that has gone through my mind after seeing yesterday's disaster on countless yellow press channels.
The reconstruction of the crash scenario was fictional.
While a lion has might, the cheetah - speed, lizards - camouflage, birds - flight, elephants - the heft, the man has none of these physical assets.
The speed is paltry with two weak legs, the strength - the lesser mentioned the better. The strongest of wrestlers would be sitting ducks to a lion or a croc.
But what we have is a 300 gram network of 'intestine-looking' bunch of wires. This neural network surpasses any strength possessed by any creature on earth, a fact misused most of the times by humans to dominate the planet.
The man for long has misused this intelligence to hunt/poach and kill the other beings on this planet so that he is secure.
Once the man is secure, the number of people on this planet rises to unimaginable proportions.
To serve the needs of the hordes of people, barbaric jungle law of 'might-is-right' will not work in the human scenario.
Therefore, the civility which is more 'acquired' than genetic steps in and saves the mankind.
The mankind does business, grows crops, sells natural resources and advances technology to build better lasting businesses. All this, to fill the stomachs of 6 billion hungry people.
Technology is a huge catalyst in determining a country's business doing capability.
And who better than USA and Russia fit this bill.
They literally tore into the world's economic scenario post world war-2, when global liberalization took centrestage.
In the relentless pursuit of advancement of technology, the human has created things which are 'beyond compare'.
No doubt, these are things that the modern man uses everyday to further his business interests, build faster and stronger travel methods.
The aeroplane is one such invention that epitomizes everything that is intelligent.
This machine, a complex hard winding of about 30 kms of cable, huge propellers and the mighty engines is but anything that the common man understands.
All the common man knows is the airfare is high during the peak season and low during off season. If I travel now, I get a better deal, else I burn a hole in my pocket.
The wise say, courtship is far less complex than marriage because the former just is a planning phase, a visualization of the rosy future-to-be, a pre-cursor to the life that would be so different from now.
But marriage is when the execution of plans start, the nitty gritties which need to be worked every hour, minute and second to ensure that the machine is well-oiled.
The moment, you forget to oil a part, it creaks, you ignore, and it crashes.
Aeroplanes are not much different.
Like countless Indians, I was shocked and dismayed at yesterday's AI flight crash disaster in Mangalore.
Initial reports suggest it was pilot error because of which the plane landed much beyond the landing zone on the runway.
The result, a hundred and sixty innocent lives lost.
Technological innovation conceptualized is always rosy... but unlike what people think, it takes a lot of attention to detail that keeps the execution smooth.
I will not harp on the tragic loss, but I will salute the thousands of aircraft maintenance engineers, the ATC controllers and the pilots who perform their duty with full sincerity. A lot depends on them.
May they be bestowed with the best of health and alertness which will help them avert disasters like these.
This only again proves the point in one of my earlier posts that Death is above all truths and supercedes everything else in the universe.
In the never ending mayhem that we create to be fitter, faster and stronger, we will at many occasions be at the receiving end.
At the very end now, I would only present 2 view-points to you :
One :
At present it takes 11 days to build a 737 aircraft with about 5800 airplane unit hours of work.
This is the same one which crashed yesterday in Mangalore. There was nothing wrong with the aircraft.
This is victory for the mankind in terms of technology.
Two :
22nd May, 2010, 6:02 AM
The plane lands safely, (Mohan, a passenger with his family coming from Dubai, tells them : "Once we take the luggage from the belt, we'll head straight to the taxi stand, I just cant wait to get to my home town"
His 8 year old son says : "Dad, but then the taxis..."
Booooom.
The fuselage of the plane splits into two, the cockpit separates leaving behind mounds of burning wires and freewheels into a deep gorge.
The rest of the plane hurtles to the same destiny.
The passengers seated in the front row can see the road beneath them whizzing backward at speeds of 200 km/h.
Suddenly a globe of fire blasts through the whole passage incinerating everything in its way.
A passeger manages to jump from the crack in the plane, falls to the ground only to see the huge back black wheel of the aircraft hurtling towards him .. he closes his eyes on the ground.)*
This is the speed of death.
And it has been decided by the man himself.
* The above is just a rendition of the disturbance that has gone through my mind after seeing yesterday's disaster on countless yellow press channels.
The reconstruction of the crash scenario was fictional.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
a few things that've kept me busy!
Yeah.. the workplace now resembles a russian warzone.
Scant respect for ethics and total emphasis on results!
This is how the russians work.. and if we need to make them happy.. then we better do the things they like and more importantly do it like they like it.
This apart, mom and dad haven't been home since a couple of weeks.. so its me and Tina all alone!
Its always delightful to be on your own.. everytime this happens, you discover a new facet to yourself.
This time its cooking.
Now, i have been a non-entity in the kitchen till I was 25-26 maybe.
The only thing I knew to cook was Maggi ( which most Indians would know ).
The tryst with cooking took shape in Apr-May 2008 or thereabouts.
There was a colleague in Moscow, who used to come over and that's when i started learning the basics of cooking.
At the end of the trip I could make rookie dishes like bambino vermicelli, egg bhurji, dal (it was a super spicy andhra variety dal) and rice.
Nothing much to be proud about.. but still, the seed had been sown.
Much later, whenever I got a chance, I tried my hand at small experiments.
None too extraordinary, but I always managed to be kind of above average.
With 3 ladies in then house, my kitchen stint was always a non-starter.
Tina herself never got enough chances to enter the kitchen, poor me stood no chance.
And then, there is also a thought that I could end up making a fool out of myself!
Tina is light years ahead of me, when it comes to cooking.. so I prefer to remain in the shadows. :)
But, this time around, I thought why not try something different.
How long will I sit on the couch and watch Tina make all those yummy dishes... all this when I knew the abc of cooking.
My help never went beyond fetching vegetables from the refrigerator or washing utensils. :P
Now, then Divya was here for a couple of days too, that was when I decided to do a little something of my own..
A colleague from office was coming for lunch too.
That day I decided to make chhole :) and believe me they did not come out bad at all...
That day served as a further inspiration... and I was only too glad from there on to try my hand whenever possible.
The coming Thursday I made some more chhole, this time to be had with puri. So they had to be be a semi gravy kind and bingo.. they turned out exactly like that.
Tina was thrilled and so was I :D
Then today, I tried out Rajma chawal.
The planning from the onion paste to the tomato pulp to all the masalas were all planned and there was Rajma in front of us in about a hour and a half!
Satisfying and refreshing!
Another one of those feelings that money cant buy!
Was so thrilled that I told her in the late evening to watch a movie and not get up from the couch...
meanwhile I went, made some noodles and did some extra garnishing over the Rajma chawal that we couldn't finish in the day.
Got a green chilli too to enhance the contents of the dish :)
It was a wonderful weekend.
Will leave you with some pics of the chhole :
And now, some for the Rajma :
Scant respect for ethics and total emphasis on results!
This is how the russians work.. and if we need to make them happy.. then we better do the things they like and more importantly do it like they like it.
This apart, mom and dad haven't been home since a couple of weeks.. so its me and Tina all alone!
Its always delightful to be on your own.. everytime this happens, you discover a new facet to yourself.
This time its cooking.
Now, i have been a non-entity in the kitchen till I was 25-26 maybe.
The only thing I knew to cook was Maggi ( which most Indians would know ).
The tryst with cooking took shape in Apr-May 2008 or thereabouts.
There was a colleague in Moscow, who used to come over and that's when i started learning the basics of cooking.
At the end of the trip I could make rookie dishes like bambino vermicelli, egg bhurji, dal (it was a super spicy andhra variety dal) and rice.
Nothing much to be proud about.. but still, the seed had been sown.
Much later, whenever I got a chance, I tried my hand at small experiments.
None too extraordinary, but I always managed to be kind of above average.
With 3 ladies in then house, my kitchen stint was always a non-starter.
Tina herself never got enough chances to enter the kitchen, poor me stood no chance.
And then, there is also a thought that I could end up making a fool out of myself!
Tina is light years ahead of me, when it comes to cooking.. so I prefer to remain in the shadows. :)
But, this time around, I thought why not try something different.
How long will I sit on the couch and watch Tina make all those yummy dishes... all this when I knew the abc of cooking.
My help never went beyond fetching vegetables from the refrigerator or washing utensils. :P
Now, then Divya was here for a couple of days too, that was when I decided to do a little something of my own..
A colleague from office was coming for lunch too.
That day I decided to make chhole :) and believe me they did not come out bad at all...
That day served as a further inspiration... and I was only too glad from there on to try my hand whenever possible.
The coming Thursday I made some more chhole, this time to be had with puri. So they had to be be a semi gravy kind and bingo.. they turned out exactly like that.
Tina was thrilled and so was I :D
Then today, I tried out Rajma chawal.
The planning from the onion paste to the tomato pulp to all the masalas were all planned and there was Rajma in front of us in about a hour and a half!
Satisfying and refreshing!
Another one of those feelings that money cant buy!
Was so thrilled that I told her in the late evening to watch a movie and not get up from the couch...
meanwhile I went, made some noodles and did some extra garnishing over the Rajma chawal that we couldn't finish in the day.
Got a green chilli too to enhance the contents of the dish :)
It was a wonderful weekend.
Will leave you with some pics of the chhole :
And now, some for the Rajma :
Sunday, May 2, 2010
I stand corrected
I stand corrected on my stand on 'Dancing'.
I now understand. Its not about how the world would feel when you dance.
Its about how you feel.
I have always respected singers.. now i respect good dancers as well!
My wife and her sis are some of the best that get produced!
I felt good today... doing crappy movements... because i was enchanted.
Loved it... thanks Divi and Tina!!!
You guys rock!
All the Mithun's thumkas now work for me!! love u guys!
I now understand. Its not about how the world would feel when you dance.
Its about how you feel.
I have always respected singers.. now i respect good dancers as well!
My wife and her sis are some of the best that get produced!
I felt good today... doing crappy movements... because i was enchanted.
Loved it... thanks Divi and Tina!!!
You guys rock!
All the Mithun's thumkas now work for me!! love u guys!
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