Why Should I vote?

For the past one year , I have been asking my friends to get their name registered on electoral voter id list and since April,2009, most of my friends have registered for voting barring a few. All of them took active part in discussions before the voting day and I got to know many issues and the problems causing them via the heated arguments ensued between my friends and their idea behind voting instead of siting idle on voting day. Before lambasting others for not voting, here are some of the drawbacks that Indian democracy has and the mindset of a common Indian while he decides to vote.

Since I began reading newspapers seriously instead of just using it to make rocket planes, it took a long time for me to realize that India is very dynamic and complex country. Here any thing is possible so is Indian democracy. I am here deliberately differentiating between democracy and Indian democracy. In India people are greedy and this applies to all. You can't live as Mahatma Gandhi in todays world is a fact that everyone knows. All people exhibit some kind of anxiety, tension and they face numerous other problems in today's world. No one lives like a king with all his servants tending him day and night. People in India are concerned here more about money than health and that's a fact. I am stressing here that greediness and the course of greediness on which money is earned in India on name of democracy is more painful than any other aspect of India. Changing attitude of Indian people is one thing many people have tried but given complex nature of surroundings in which we have grown and the circumstances due to which people are obligated to behave is very hard to understand.

Today's media does a great job of portraying the drawbacks of our democracy. If a dog bites man it is no story but if a man bites dogs it is breaking headlines' Why? Because the media is also after earning money.The attitude like ' chalta  hai', ' Khud bhi khoa aur dusro ko bhi khilao' is inscibed on the minds of people due to surroundings. For the past few years I have tried to stop people from littering on local trains but on the next journey it starts again with the attitude ' apna kay jata hai, railway apne ko janawar(animals) ki tarah leke jati hai, mera kya jata hai ki kuch kachra failane se gandigi badhegi!' '
People tend to forget the drawbacks of this kind of attitude. As I had already mentioned, this type of problems are neglected when people have problems related to their money.

Money is the root cause of all the evils in our society. In India, getting into politics is the easiest way to earn cheap money. After all in India we have dynasties of families running our country since independence. They are elected in spite of their mistakes in past as people have something stamped on their brain that it brings stability in our country but what about the development? These families are sure that they will get elected whatever the problems the common man faces. This happened during the Maharashta state  assembly elections!The party that has inflicted lots of problems to common people like power crisis, increasing tax but still they get elected! Isn't that ironical? But this is called Indian Democracy. Here anything is possible, even proving a dead man is alive!

Now coming to people who abstain from voting and enjoy the voting day as a holiday writing posts about not  voting giving justifications about it.

Let's start with unavailability of lays potato chips in our locality. If a brand X gives me 1 rupee commission for one packet of potato chips sold while the brand Y gives me 50 paise commission per packet which would I prefer displaying it in my shop? It should be understood about the dynamics of money when the shopkeeper keeps a product for selling in his shop.

Let's turn towards the old watchman guarding our buildings. They charge a monthly 2500 bucks while an able bodied watchman cost 7000 bucks to hire. If this proposal comes in the annual AGM meeting of society, 90% of members object to it as it involves increasing the monthly service charges which in turn affect the monthly budget of our household. And people generally compromise on security in turn of money being saved. Also good people think that old watchmen are saved from depending on their not so able sons who generally would have thrown them from their own house! Here also the circumstances of recruiting old watchmen is complex and should have been understood.

From the above cases, I would like to present before you a complex analogy of things on which our country is running. Those who don't understand the this simple analogies simply migrate to a developed nation and this is called Brain drain. A Somalian would like to live in India but an Indian would prefer living in Canada than in India. Why? Many reasons beyond the scope of this post.

Is dictatorship or communism better than democracy? If you want taste of it go to China and write about human rights violation on your blog. Next day you will not be heard by anyone. Is this better than a democratic country where you at least get to express your views. Friends we are still in better position than our counterparts.

The main idea of me writing this post after such long time is that instead of complaining about the present situation in our country why can't you do a small job of voting as a dutiful citizen of India. At least, you have taken part in this painful democratic process. Many flaws are there in our system but you can't complain about it every time. If you can't adjust, I can say only one thing, things will be very difficult for you in future.

Fading Light

Sitting near the window seat
the cold wind was lashing my face.
The train was guzzling fuel like a hungry monster
to help us reach on time
We were going away from the city,
I could see the industrial area lights fading

The yellow Victorian era lights
Causing the horizon to look like classic yellow
The yellow shade was visible
for a good 60 miles
and slowly it faded appearing like a single point.

At that moment I looked up
the country side sky was full of stars
Memories of sleeping on terrace resurfaced on my mind
then, I would stare infinitely at the stars

It was long time back
now I don't see the dark nights
The Industrial and city lights have become  an integral part of my life
that I rarely see a moonless dark night.

Life has become so cruel towards us
we miss the dark sky full of stars
Though we don't know the names of countless stars
we still enjoy seeing them endlessly

The wind was still lashing my face
within a few minutes,
I could see another yellow horizon awaiting us,
Another cruel city awaiting us
The stars were slowly disappearing
And the city lights took control of my life.

( P.S-this is the first ever poem written by a guy like me)

The two sides of a coin

Whenever a lecture on random signal analysis goes on in the class, the professor in our college exclaims loudly, “a coin is tossed in the air five times, find the probability that a head comes?” I scribble the answer on my notebook and I patiently waited for others to finish. As all of us in the class are not the same beads of a chain, I took my time analyzing a one rupee new coin fallen from someone’s pocket near my bench. The coin had two sides, a head and a tail. It was on head and tail that my friends were working while I was seeing the coin and thinking, ‘Can the head and tail be interchanged?’

Head tail, tail head represents the two contrasting facets of life. They represent a wide aura of things around us which cannot be explained. One such thing that can aptly be represented through a coin is the vast difference between the rich and poor. The rich enjoy a happy life while those of poor, it goes on dragging them into the deep hollow pit running till the core of earth. They are present on the same coin but still have a contrasting connection between them.

The coin rules our life. What happens if there was only head present on the coin and not tails? How would the cricket matches proceed? It should not proceed in the way that we used to in our childhood like picking up ‘Gutkha’ packet and flipping it in air to decide who will bat first. It looks like our playground was full of ‘Gutkha’ packets than coins which we rarely possessed while playing. A coin it looked like was valuable but if it was available without a tail. Would it be appreciated in market? A coin without a tail is like a person without a name. The head and tail have to exist in order to run this world or else what will happen is that only good characters exist or only evil characters exist.

The good and evil have to exist? But why? The answer may never come out but when we flip a coin, most of times good wins. Thus a coin decides our fate. Fate is one thing which can catapult us to glory or to doomsday. Fate has its own consequences and whether it affects us or not is decided by time and not by us.

Does a coin decide luck? May be or maybe not. Luck is one thing that I hear many people exclaim loudly whenever they get out of an exam hall. Will luck favor the outcome? I can’t say but a coin can decide whether your luck overrules your hard work.

The next thing I hear is from our professor is, “what is probability that two heads will come? And the story about coin goes on..

Trek to Lohagad

I can only say one thing after this trek, easy one for all to trek. All you had to do is walk and walk unless you choose a difficult path to have some thrill. This trek was full of moments that I will cherish my entire life.

Lohagad is a majestic fort situated in Pune district and the closest accessible village by road is Lohagadwadi while by train is Malavali which is the very next station on Lonavala-Pune route. It is roughly 9 k.m. from Malavali station. We were a small group of three Musketeers hoping for some adventure and the first shock we received was at Kalyan station when Sushrut forgot to take his wallet. At that instant his face was worth seeing to be captured. Unfortunately that expression lasted for a few seconds as the thought of me taking his photo early morning in that state made him smile. He was regretting the whole trek of not being able to buy chocolate fudge of some good outlet at Lonavala. At that point we figured out that his reliance *mobile* is more important to him than his wallet. Our journey started and I took the photo of Rajmachi mountain as seen from the railway route. As soon as we reached the Lonavala station, we took local train tickets and just boarded the train before it took off. The trek begins from Malavali railway station. For those who want to go by road from Mumbai, catch the old Mumbai-Pune highway after Lonavala, take a left turn at an appropriate sign on the road going for Malavali. Also there is a direct road going to the base of the fort from Pune. After crossing the expressway on a small suspension type bridge, I noticed that the Malavali was bisected by the express way and the villagers might be having a tough time to cross the village everytime for work.

We reached Bhaje village and followed a small group like ours who took us through paddy fields instead of the road. The first sight of Visapur fort was mind blowing and the walls of the fort were clearly visible from base. The climb we thought was becoming monotonous with no such challenges on the path. Hence we decided to take some short cut path to avoid the road. We climbed for half an hour till we reached a place where there was space left between Lohagad and Visapur forts for movement of air. And at that point the wind was moving at such a high speed that we being pushed in the direction of wind. For the first time I sensed the power of wind. After crossing that windy area we reached the footsteps of the fort. The steps are well maintained though broken at some places. The view from every point of the fort was breath taking and the Pawana dam was visible from that place. We were told that five forts are visible from Lohagad. The fort was well maintained with strong walls and gates. Every point view was best for a snap but the clouds and fear of rains coming at any instant holed our cameras in our bags. As we climbed higher and higher, the visibility reduced considerably. We followed a small group of children which was headed by an elderly person as they were going to Vinchu ‘tok’. But huge dense fog blocked our way and cold started gripping us due to rains. The droplets of the rains were sharper than the prickle of a needle and that experience was worth remembering. At that moment cold started gripping us and we decided to retreat our steps towards vinchu tok as the road towards it was a small path and chances of slipping were more due to the gushing wind. We came towards the main entrance and started descending down. There are some good stalls at the base of fort and a small snack refreshed us.

The descend was simple and we decided to visit Bhaje caves via a different route. We came across a path which was dangerous to go as there was no guarantee where the path will go. I decided to retreat my steps and the other two went in that direction only to be found out that they were helped by a local guide to be bought down. I was happy that it did not go with them as it was extremely risky to go on the path they had chosen. In the end we did not visit Bhaje caves! On our way towards Bhaje there were numerous waterfalls and we resisted ourselves in going in them as the aftereffects of cold would have been disastrous.

Now the climax of our trek. We reached Lonavala around five p.m. and let three trains go as we had reservation on Indrayani express. We sat there in cold only to be relieved by hot coffee we drank. The train came and as usual we ordered a family sitting on our seats to get up. They showed their tickets and we showed them ours only to find out that we were issued tickets of 25^th September, 2009 instead of 25^th July,2009. 25000 volt shock gripped my body as this was a human error of the railway clerk and we all three were unable to see our mistake before boarding our train. We traveled ticketless and were lucky ones as the ticket checker went in front of us without asking us tickets. A close shave!

The total duration of trek is roughly two hours to the top and anyone can endure this trek. Lohagad is place to be near Lonavala and a fort worth to watch. Easy one for first timers and everyone will enjoy it.

Trek to Rajmachi.

Trek to Rajmachi was my second weirdest trekking experience for me as well as my friends. Unlike last year’s trek to Duke’s nose, we completed our trek successfully. It was a new experience for me to trek on a route which was all the time steep.

For all those who are planning a trek to Rajmachi, here’s a short gist of how to reach Rajmachi. All the references are with respect to Kalyan. It’s a sincere request to all those who want to complete the trek in one day to get as early as four in the morning. Catch the early trains for Karjat or Khopoli. The precise timings of local trains from Kalyan are 5:30, 5:42, 5:50, and 6:10 a.m. Alight and walk towards the Pune end bridge and get down at your left side of the station if you are coming from Kalyan. The east and west of karjat sometimes drives you mad hence it is easy to remember to get down at your left side. Ask locals for a bridge and there you will get ‘dum-dum’, ‘kali-pili’ or rickshaw to Kondivade Phata. There are adequate signs telling which rickshaw to catch. Don’t tell the rickshawallah Kondivade as he may charge more. The Kondivade Phata is located in Khandpe village. The standard rates are Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 to Kondivade phata on share basis. From Kondivade phata, you should be willing to walk 15 minutes to reach Kondivade village. Ask the locals for correct directions in the village and trek starts.

The above things mentioned above were for those who are searching on net how to get to Rajmachi. My personal experiences are little weird and it starts now.

The 4^th July, 2009 was the date assigned for our trek. We were three of us and after huge debate and discussions we decided to leave at 5:15 a.m. sharp. I as usual arrived 5:15 sharp and after making frantic calls to my friends, I was given the orders to buy tickets for all of us. After buying tickets, I saw the 5:30 a.m. train go past by my side still no sign of presence of them. I again made class saying we are late by 45 minutes. Again another train came, 5:42 a.m. and now I was dead sure that there will be no train to such a far destination after this train. No sign of presence of my friends and I started to get frustrated before dawn and to my surprise the indicator displayed 5:50 train and the blokes arrived on time. Karjat came in talking and pulling legs of each other. As soon as we alighted we were greeted by ticket checkers who found three blokes walking in garden on railway station. The joy of showing them the tickets gives me great pleasure as they could not get ‘Bakras’ early morning. We reached Kondivade village at 8 a.m. after helping a ‘cross country rider’ pull out his bike in mud. The trek started after asking locals directions and we were unsure of the path till we reached the white markings which tell the path to Rajmachi. I was happy that we were on right path. The climbing part began with steep slpoes and crossing huge stones. There was 95% humidity in air and we were feeling it and I was sweating profusely and had to stop many times for water which annoyed my friends a lot. The climbing part is easy one for regular trekkers but a difficult one for annual ones like me. I had to stop many times and in this process a small group overtook us which annoyed Sushrut a lot. But I couldn’t help as I was feeling heart beats in my ear and the sweat made me take out my towel every 15 minutes. We were climbing and there were no signs of flat plateau. Every time we thought we reached a place the top of mountain would appear to be far away from us. Finally we saw a small hut and that was 12:00 p.m. the time when we reached that spot. The owner of the hut gave us refreshing lime water and dried peanuts to eat. That energized us as we had only eaten ‘Batata vada’ at Karjat station. The view from that point is worth remembering.


 A small walk of 20 minutes and we reached Rajmachi. We dropped our bags at one of the houses of locals taking precious things with us. We started to trek and reached a small temple and took rest for nearly 25 minutes and started taking snaps of beautiful scenery around us. Them it started to rain torrentially and we dropped our plans to go to top forts namely ‘Shrivardhan’ and ‘Manoranjan’ as they were still far away. We trekked down to village and ate ‘garam dal-bhaat’ at the local house. Eating hot food gave us energy as we were drenched in rain and giving out vapours from our mouth.

We started to trek down at 2:30 p.m. We came across the same hut that we had encountered and ordered hot tea. The smell of kerosene made me fell dizzy and as soon as I drank the hot tea, I vomited and I lost all my energy to trek down. Then the hardest part started, that is to trek down when it was pouring cats and dogs. The path became slippery and my legs started to tremble on the path. Then the narrow muddy part came which had a steep valley running down and I fell at least four times on that path frightening my friends. I started to lose my confidence and the trek became the hardest part of my life. The small paths of a deep valley near the either side became more frequent and the trek started to get dangerous for me as well for my friends who cared for me. I became completely covered by mud due to my frequent inability to place my foot on right spot of path. The rain lashing my body acted as cleanser and I was kept clean but the trekking down gave me an experience that I will never forget. I was also helped by members of other group namely a 42 year old fellow named John who helped me to trek down on difficult parts of path. The trek down became hard only due to me losing my confidence and the rains. We took three and half hours to reach Kondivade phata while the usual time taken is one and a half hour. All this happened solely because of me. I ate greedly as I reached Karjat station as I had eaten less amount of food since morning.

As we were trekking down some groups of people were going up for night stay and that is more suitable if you want to complete trek in peace. Trekking in rains was enjoyable as we were racing against time to reach Kondivade before dusk. Short synopsis of trek:

   1. Carry lots of water.

   2. Good food is available at Rajmachi.

   3. Follow white arrow marks, you will not get lost.

   4. Trek via Karjat is more interesting as we have to climb up while trek via Lonavala is easy as you are coming down.

  5. No need of guide.

  6. The honking of horns of railways is heard on most of trek, a vital sign that assures that you are on right track.

Lastly I would like to thank my friends Angad and Sushrut without their help this trek would have not been possible.

The harsh reality-Children begging in India

Jumping into the local train before it stops on the platform is the most coveted skill any Mumbaikar possesses and I am no exception to it. After catching a seat to sit in the Thane-Vashi train and seeing the morose faces of those who were unable to do it, I closed my eyes for some peace and meditation. Suddenly on my bag, a small girl thrust a placard. Observing it carefully, I realized it was another way to beg and get little alms easily. The placard simply told my mother is ill and I require money. The girl came back collected the placard and went begging the whole compartment. I usually don’t give alms to beggars and also discourage other people and today’s day was no exception. But somewhere in my mind a question crops up, are my actions justified of not giving alms? Sometimes I do feel guilty that I should have helped her. Till my destination to alight arrived I was seriously thinking over this issue.

What prompted the girl to beg? Is the condition she showed us on placard a reality? Has begging robbed her of her childhood? Or was she forced into it by someone? These questions will remain unanswered till my death!

Begging- Stand near any traffic signal, small children surround you. Stand in railway compartment; you will constantly be poked on your knee by a small child to give you alms causing some embarrassment to you in train. They don’t leave you till they get their alms. Once a small child beggar was asking a half eaten ice-cream from me at Vashi bus depot and was crying madly for it. I gave it but her brother came and started asking it from my friends eating nearby. Seeing the scenario few of my friends ran away fearing a whole group of beggars will come after them. Such is the case in India. Main reason for this- POVERTY.

All of us know that children begging in the streets are the ones who are forced to beg by others for their own greed. Poor Indian families are huge and they send their children to collect money in scorching sun. Do you all remember the dialogue from Slumdog millionaire that Salim had said to Latika- ‘Chhote Bacche ko saath legi to dugna kamayegi’. Yes, on Indian streets you see poor Indian moms carrying them on their backs and begging. It really hurts me to see this scenario. When will this situation change?

The Indian government allocates corers of rupees for welfare of poor but where does all that go? Corruption siphons up half the money and rest reaches Swiss banks. The result is the poor get nothing and the condition remains the same since independence. Very few people benefit from schemes for welfare of poor.

The solution for this is an independent government body in which the funds directly reach poor without any government red tape. Secondly poorer people should be encouraged to send their children to school which creates awareness among children about the various government schemes. Ultimately education is the strength that can empower the poorer ones towards prosperity. The government should open special houses where poorer children can be taught for free and can be kept from all the bad vices of society.

These are the few solutions I have mentioned above are a few steps that can be done to make our society more powerful and make it independent of people who want to use us as puppets. It is the youth that has to empowered so that Indians reap the benefits of prosperity.

Trip to Tamhini Ghat

One thing is sure guys, Tamhini ghat is the place to be on earth. Located on Pune-Mahad road it’s one of the few places void of all social animals.

Located roughly about 65 to 70 kilometers from Pune, it offers us the best view of the Western Ghats. Our family made a trip to this place on 28^th June, 2009. The road to Tamhini ghat is okay one and on the way one can enjoy the view of Mulshi dam. I took a few photos from my Sony cyber shot digital camera and I am pleased to share it with you.

The first photo shows us the flat plains of Konkan region clearly visible from Tamhini ghat.

The second photo shows us the close up view of another insect. Frankly speaking I don’t know the name of insect.

The third photo is one of the best I ever took. This photo shows how soil erosion has took place on a mountain eroding it and giving rise to dense foliage. This dense foliage runs down till bottom of valley and such type of foliage is not found elsewhere on the route.

The fourth photo shows us that a part of mountain had caved in this part was somewhat receiving less amount of water. Now if you observe that caved in part carefully and if we zoom that part we find some white growth in that part. Is the white part some kind of wild mushrooms or like my friend guessed it as some bird, still it is unclear. This photo was taken from an eight megapixel digital camera and full 4x optical zoom as that place was very high from the place we were standing.

The last photo is the catchment area of Mulshi dam. Due to lack of rains in the month of June the catchment area was not full of water. (This collaborates that the news we hear about lack of rains this monsoon is true) We went down to the reservoir along a muddy path and we had a nice time strolling near the reservoir with the gushing wind gracing our faces like a hard slap.

Tamhini ghat is perfect place to spend your weekend in the laps of nature.

India on the path of conquering commercial aspect of cricket

Surfing channels, I came across Star sports airing some old cricket match from its rich archives. The match going on was India vs. England (1995-1996). The English audiences neatly dressed in suit- tie were enjoying watching English bowlers getting hammered by a debutant Sourav Ganguly.

Let’s get to main thing that pushed me to write this post. All the advertisements were looking unfamiliar to me. Even the spaces that separate the stands which hoist advertisements were unfurling the English brands. I don’t recall those names but those all sounded unfamiliar.

2009- ICC 20-20 world cup going on. The main sponsors- Reliance Mobile, LG, Hero-Honda and Pepsi. All the four are having significant presence but out of them, two are located and based only in India. Every space on the ground capable of displaying advertisements is occupied by these brands.

Do the Australians, Pakistanis, New Zealanders know these brands unless they search the net. Nahhh!! They might be going nuts thinking about these brands.

Look at the current position about the power of India. She has literally captured all the commercial aspect of cricket. That made me proud of India the most in spite of ongoing things going in India like corruption, nepotism etc. India has captured a huge chunk of the commercial market.

Beware world, India is marching on and all the other people need to look out at India as a major superpower in the world.

My memorable past..

Every time I think about my past moments in my life, I cannot stop thinking about it. Thinking about the past nostalgias makes me smile a lot. I would like to share my few past memories that are deeply inscribed on my brain. Even a ‘Ghajni’ like incident can’t wipe them out from my grey matter of my brain. Here are some of them...

Have you ever experienced the agonizing pain in fracturing a bone in your body? I have experienced not once but twice. The first one when I was really small to understand the pain and second one the unforgettable one. While playing in 2^nd standard near our building’s society premises, running wildly through a dense bush, I tripped over a stone marking the boundary of the bush and a path. I rolled two to three times on my back before coming to a halt. At that moment I realized an excruciating pain in my right elbow and started crying loudly. Such was the pain that I wasn’t able to move my elbow as if it had got stuck somewhere. My nerves of hand were giving high levels adrenaline to my brain which made me cry aloud for at least an hour. Somehow I reached home to find my mother telling me that I have suffered a fracture. She somehow managed to put a temporary support to my hand and gave me pain killers. The next day I went to an orthopedic who plastered my hand with one kilo white cement. For 21 days I had the heavy plaster on my hand right from my fingers to shoulders. During this period my friends completed all my class-work and homework assignments and I am really indebted to them.

Next memory that I would like to share is how my 2^nd standard picnic got spoilt due to my one of my friend. We were going to a resort in Ambernath. He was sitting near the window seat while I was sitting near the aisle seat regretting my decision not to a catch a window seat by running when the bus arrived and catching the much coveted window seat. As the bus was midway to our destination, the friend sitting next to me vomited on my left side. Yuck!!! I said loudly. He in spite of sitting near the window seat vomited that white liquid on me. Our body has such complex reflex actions is the one thing that I learnt that day. On that day I had tough time as I smelt the whole day. My class teacher Miss Leena cleaned the whole stuff as soon as we reached the resort. Still the smell was stinking the whole day. I didn’t enjoy the picnic the whole day. Just like cigarette packs carry a statutory warning on them –‘Smoking is injurious to life’, people who tend to vomit in bus should also carry a statutory warning on their shirt-‘Give me a window seat or suffer the consequences’. Still you can suffer like me.

One of my worst days in life turned out to be when I was in 3^rd standard. After playing one evening cricket on the big playground in front of my home, I forgot to take my bat. Somebody took the bat lying idly and we all went to my home to have water part to quench our thirst. As we all gulped down three to four bottles of water, in hurry I forgot to lock the door of my house. The house was left open and one of our good neighbors noticed it and kept a good vigil the whole evening till my mom arrived. When I reached home I got a good scolding the whole evening for the double losses I had suffered.

The next thing that recalls me is that of monitors patrolling our class. Whenever there used to be sometime between one teacher to come between the lectures the monitor used to take control of the class. He used to write the word ‘NAMES’ on the blackboard and he used to write those who used to talk or play some mischief. Though there used to be some regular names on the blackboard some of them used to beg the monitor to cancel the name from blackboard. If the teacher used to be strict, they would give remarks in diary or some would simply neglect. There used to be n type of monitors to do all work and they acted as if they are the immortal souls of the school. Also the teachers showed partiality towards these immortal souls of school.

There are many more memories that I will never forget with some of them capable of acquiring Oscars like those mentioned above. Don’t know but I have a unique ability to recall many things about my past. I hope my future will also give me such type of incidents in my life..

Dare to think out of box

Recently, I was going through the huge piles of National Geographic magazines I had collected over the past few years. The main aim of me browsing through these magazines was that I was bored studying electronic circuits. I desperately needed to refresh into my already saturated mind, so I took solace in reading these magazines. One article that really fascinated me was that from January, 2009 issue was about North Pole sagas.

 It’s about a daring idea of a Norwegian scientist, Fridtjof Nansen, to freeze a ship in the Arctic ice and take it to North Pole! Though this idea appears to be suicidal, this great man along with a companion managed to reach the highest latitude ever reached at that time 86degrees 14 seconds!! In the late 19^th century without any modern equipment, they still were just 226 miles away from pole. What’s appreciable about Nansen is the courage and the daring nature of this man to reach north pole. I really felt motivated simply reading this article. A great achievement of that time!

Really those who think to dare succeed the more number of times. To dare we need courage and this courage can be build only by us. Also our way of thinking should change. We should dare to think differently and take the correct decisions. Daring is one virtue that many few people in this world possess and those who possess it turn them into fruits of success.

Daring, you all may be thinking is not that courage that Las Vegas male and female strippers possess of removing clothes in front of huge eye-pooping crowds. Such daring is of no use but one should appreciate them for showing of their skin in lieu of money and also self-esteem.

Those who think differently only succeed in life. Had any one thought of a small business venture like Reliance turning into a MNC within short period of time? The late Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani had the vision to think differently. That’s why reliance is at such a good position in this world.

Like this there are innumerable examples of great people realizing their dreams by daring to think differently.

So friends let’s change ourselves by thinking out of box.

  

I Voted for India

On 30th April,2009, I voted for India for a better tomorrow. Instead of having a long weekend I voted for the welfare of Indian democracy that one day change will happen..

Shame on all those who did not vote inspite of being eligible to vote.
I was dissapointed with the low voter turnout in Mumbai.

Let's hope for a good change to happen..

I vote for India

Today, early morning I went to the local election office to see whether my name is there or not in the electoral list for LokSabha elections. I was pleasantly surprised to see my name in the electoral list J

I had filled the form for inclusion of my name in the list way back in July, 2008. Seeing the government apathy in all fields of commerce, I had expected my name to be in LokSabha elections 2013 most probably. But today’s day started with a positive note and a slightly changed attitude towards the government.

Walking down the road, I pondered, whom to cast my precious vote?

To the corrupt politicians who eat our hard earned money?

To those who play the dirty politics of forming alliances and breaking them whenever they see green fodder in the opposite stable?

To those who compromise development of country for their own selfish means?

To those who play dirty vote bank politics to remain in power and to eat more money?

To those who stall infrastructure projects if they don’t get a big pie of money in this project?

To those who bollywood stars for attracting attention from public?

Are these politicians who use bollywood stars not capable of themselves attracting crowd with their own charm?

Or to those who go to Delhi for obtaining orders from the high command in order to implement decisions regarding any change in government? Can’t they take decisions themselves instead of flying to Delhi in aero planes and wasting public moneys?

Or to those who play the communal card in order to garner votes?

Recently in a radio interview I heard a young youth asking for a separate button on the voting machine for not voting to any of the candidates. I really agree with that youth’s point.

The heavy campaigning done by Aamir Khan and all others to vote for country should not go waste. After all our vote can somewhat change our country.

Last but not the least let’s vote for a better tomorrow.

I will vote for India.

My driving experiences-2

This is post is the continuation of the last post about my driving experiences.

Well let’s start with the important aspect of driving any car. First a fall, you should remove the phobia that you can’t drive a car as soon as you sit on the driver’s seat. You should have the confidence of driving the car irrespective of whether the weather, pothole ‘wallah’ road or any other minor reasons. Before starting of car it’s the responsibility of driver to ensure that the car is working properly. He is the one who has to see whether the car has adequate engine oil, brake oil or whether the tires are aerated. This should be done as the fate of the passengers is in his hand. Also you should adjust the two mirrors of your car to see the vehicles behind you.

The next important part is driving a vehicle improves your eye, ear, hand, legs co-ordination. Your reflexes should be quick to respond to any type of circumstances. Let me explain this hand-eye-ear-leg co-ordination with an example. When you sit on a driver’s seat you two legs should be able to handle the three pedals of the car namely ABC’s( accelerator, brakes, clutch) , your two hands should be able to handle the gears, steering wheel as well as various functions on the dashboard of the car. Also your eyes and ears should be wide open so that you could understand what’s happening in the surrounding.

Next thing is that you should always start any vehicle with gear in neutral mode. This prevents your car from starting from jerk in case you have not pressed the clutch pedal of the car. Slowly accelerate the car once you switched to the 1^st gear and change the gears according to your speed. Don’t accelerate the car rapidly as the vehicle in front of you can stop at any instant leading to an accident.

It is sometimes said ‘roads have potholes but Indian potholes have roads’ J

Though this criteria is not applicable to all Indian roads. Nothing happens if you go through a small pothole if your shock absorbers are good but many things can happen if u go through a big pothole. Your car can bounce and run into the divider of road.

Also from my experiences the golden rule to cross any speed breaker is as follows:

As soon as you see a speed breaker change the gear to 1^st and reduce the speed by pressing both the clutch and brake. As soon as you fell that your front tires have gone through the speed breaker increase the speed and shift to 2^nd gear. That’s what I have been doing whenever I see a speed breaker.

Last but not the least; don’t talk with your co-passenger unnecessarily. Also don’t drink and drive for sake of your safety as well as others who are driving on the road.

HAPPY DRIVING..

My experiences at the driving school

                When I turned 18 years old on 29^th November, 2007, I took a firm decision to be a legal citizen of India by having a valid photo identity card issued by Government of India. Till then I had no photo identity and was recognized by the Government of India on the grounds of ration card, a domicile certificate and a birth certificate.

            The options in front of me was to obtain a PAN card which I didn’t needed desperately as of now, a passport but a thought cropped up in my mind- what’s the need of a passport when I will be using it only after I get a job, the last option one was to get a driving license which would be of great use to me as well as to my family. The main reason for dad approving the idea of me obtaining a driving license is that his dream will come true of enjoying in the backseat of a car   while I sweat it out on the Indian roads and the standstill traffic with a dumb cow ruminating quietly on the middle of a six lane road unaware of the threat she faces from the monstrous Indian traffic. (One point I would like to mention is that Indian roads have greatly improved and the fact that the National Geographic society had a mention of it in their magazine.) Also my mother equally dreamed me helping her doing daily chores on the bike. Well my intention was that I should be able to drive a car in emergency situations.

            Finally the day dawned when my vacations started in June and I was free to do whatever I wanted after a harrowing one year of engineering. After enquiring a few driving schools in my locality, I enrolled for the one which was nearest to my home. (After all vacations were going on and I couldn’t take the risk of getting up early and destroying my peaceful sleep)

            Day 1: Reporting time 7:00 a.m. I reached at 7:15 a.m. The consequences- their whole schedule got disturbed. Then I came to know that students like me  who were lined up at an interval of 30 minutes, and as I was late by 15 minutes they too got late by 15 minutes and I was the first trainee student of the day. Many students were office goers who went late to the office because of a lazy oaf like me. I got a warning from the receptionist of the diving school to be on time the next day.

            I forgot to tell you what I learnt on the first day. The driving master came with the key and i followed with him to the Maruti 800 car. He told me to remain calm, adjust my seat and seat belt and slowly introduced me to all the aspects of a car. The ABC’s, that is the pedals, accelerator, brake and the clutch, how do they work, how to start the car, the various functions on the signs on the dash board of the car, and even how to adjust the side mirror of car. Then I started the car. Frankly speaking on that day I was just pushing the accelerator and the steering wheel while the controls of the gear clutch and the breaks were in his hand. I was observing him how he changes the gear and applies the break. I quickly grasped it as I had seen my father doing this for many years. Then he gave the controls of the car to me and I drove it in the best manner I can. In all it was a good day.

            Day 2: The instructor changed and he directly told me to drive. I told him that it was my second day and kindly requested him to explain again how to start a car. I think the guy was having a bad morning and he hurriedly explained me and off we went. On that day I had problems changing the gear from 2^nd to 3^rd and vice versa. After getting a hearing from him I was still uneasy in changing the gears and was not satisfied with the 2^nd day at the school.

The remaining 18 days went smoothly with me learning the various skills of driving a car.

In the next post I would be sharing my experiences of how to drive a car and the problems I had encountered in driving the car.

  

Earth

Just two days before, the Kepler was launched by the NASA. The main mission of Kepler was to find whether there are any planets in galaxy which can support the human life.

But the question is that can’t we keep Earth, our planet a little more habitable and peaceful instead of exploiting our beloved Mother.

We all in some or the other way are exploiting Earth for our benefit. We have become so selfish and cruel that we no longer care about Mother. We are indirectly decreasing the lifespan of Earth. We are acting as if we no longer consider the benefit of future generation. Are the present generations of people trying to be in the history books to be called as destroyers of earth by the future generation?

Look at the present scenario, everywhere there are some kind of disasters happening at every nook and corner of earth. Be it the natural calamities like earthquakes, floods, melting of glaciers, extinction of species everyday or tsunamis. They are slowly taking the toll on us and making the earth a dangerous place to live. But don’t forget that we are also creating manmade calamites like constantly exploiting the belly of earth for more minerals, wars, nuclear bomb testing, building dams on rivers and changing their course and polluting the environment to name a few. They are just a small portion of things we are doing to degrade earth. There are many things we are doing that made NASA to send Kepler on this mission.

Can’t we stop it?

Can’t all the world leaders come together and find a solution to problem before it gets out of our hand?

We can do it. We can start from our part to stop this degradation of earth by doing simple steps such as recycling plastic, using public transport to name a few. We can try our best to stop it and maintain the Earth’s ecological balance. After all we are humans; we should have the will power to prevent this type of calamity.

I hope the day doesn’t come that we are celebrating that the Kepler has found a planet like earth and we are leaving in batches to go to that planet. After all I feel that no other planet is as beautiful and hospitable like Earth.

But my good wishes are with Kepler to find another planet just in case………………….

A funny way of protesting in India

I find this type of protest in India particularly funny and I always have a small laugh at the protestors doing such a kind of protest.

This kind of protest of burning effigies (dummy statues) of person or the organization against whom you are protesting leaves me wondering, what kind of satisfaction do these people get by burning these effigies.

I really don’t know whether these types of protests take place in other countries other than India. It really amuses me seeing the television footage of people taking out their anger on a dumb statue. The scene of people garlanding the statue with ‘chappals’ or pouring kerosene on it and burning it provides a good opportunity for the protesters to showcase themselves on the ever increasing twenty four hour airing news channels in India and also a good chance for news channel to provide a good breaking news.

Poor Effigy……how much it must be suffering the brutal force of the angry public I thought………… 

What I feel about Slumdog Millionaire...

Every day or the other I hear of the movie ‘Slumdog millionaire’ being in the newspaper for some reason or the other for being in the race for the Oscars or grabbing awards at the Golden Globe awards ceremony or the controversial remarks by the great ‘Big B’. I too being an Indian would like to express my views on the movie.

I too had discussed this movie with all my common friends whose views matched with mine. Though this movie is winning accolades everywhere I found this movie a bit disgusting. Though this movie has excellent cast, a good directing and good music I found it a normal movie with the tag, from rags to riches and it is worth watching only once. It is not as good as the Hindi movie ‘Taare zameen par’ which is hundred times better than Slumdog. Also it hurt me that a big city like Mumbai is shown in dire straits with the dumping grounds, slums and antisocial elements. Though I really admit that these elements exist in Mumbai it was a cheap way of earning money for film by showing all this stuff to westerners. Also such antisocial elements are also present in all western countries and it shouldn’t have been pin pointed only at India. It hurts me that this film shows India in such a poor condition to the world audience.

I would like to tell you all that it is a good movie worth watching once and forgetting it. Any patriotic Indian would feel unhappy about the conditions in which a common Indian is living………….

Mumbai- a city that soaks all your energy

Once I was traveling late night on Mumbai local trains after seeing a recent Hindi movie, I was tired so were many people in the train. I boarded a Dombivili bound local at about 10:35 p.m from Thane station. I could see the tired faces of people after a day’s hard work only to find yourself in a crowded local train trying to find a seat to sit in order to rest your badly aching legs. As far as I know, most of them would have been thinking about their family and money problems.

Let me give you a quick overlook of Dombivili railway station. It has five platforms out of which platform no.1 serves all local trains which have to go beyond Dombivili. Normally the trains which terminate at Dombivili arrive at platform no.2. Trains arriving at platform no.1 have a good facility that you can get down at Dombivili from both sides of the train. You can compare it with the platforms at C.S.T station where you can get down at both sides of platform. Most suburban stations have facility to get down on a platform only on one side. I hope you would have understood it.

Well as Dombivili terminating train arrives only on platform no.2, it is the same platform where you can get down only on one side of the train that is the left side of train. As the train approached the station I could see people flocking on the both sides of train unaware that there is no platform on your right side. Still I could see the crowd growing more on the right side. So much tired were the people that they were unaware that this local train arrives only at platform no.2. Finally as the train approached the station the crowd of people realized their mistake and unknowingly admitted their foolishness.

I thought that this is the extend at which a big city like Mumbai can make you tired!!!!!!!!