if i were a girl...

My mom often sighs, “if only were you a girl”. What could have been the consequences, I ponder, for my mom and me. I would have opted for science stream, done my computer engineering from one of many longada engineering colleges thriving in south india. And then would have swarmed to cts, infosys, wipro, tcs etc. And then the b(g)room hunt would begin, with me calling the shots: “professionally qualified and well settled smart looking boy following our culture and tradition with modern outlook, caring and humorous. Should be a B.E. and based in Karnataka/Tamilnadu or anywhere in abroad”. And then marriage shall follow and having insisted on foreign mappu, I shall join my husband there. And then, the inevitable happens; I am on my domestic way. And my mom joins the I.A.S. cadre! She would join me to take care of the infant and start her service as an indian aaya.

My mom often sighs, “if only were you a girl….I would get to see foreign.” Also she has reached this skewed opinion that girls take much better care of their parents.

Plucked hair versus medical seat

Gurleen Kaur, a girl aspiring to be a doctor, approached Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Amritsar, for admission relying on sikhs minority quota. The institute refused to admit her for she had plucked her eyebrows. Similar fate awaited boys who had trimmed their hair. The controversy reached the Punjab & Haryana High Court which finally concluded as, “For the present controversy, we hereby, accordingly, hold that retaining hair unshorn is one of the most important and fundamental tenets of the Sikh religion. In fact, it is undoubtedly a part of the religious consciousness of the Sikh faith.” This decision was reached after going through reels and reels of paper on the evolution of sikh religion and do’s and don’ts prescribed by various gurus.

Individuals and organizations gave their views on significance of “unshorn hair” to sikh religion and supported the decision of the institute of not giving seats to the kids who had tampered with their pitch. It seems the majority of the community had turned against the kids. The judges handling the case also received letters advising them not to venture to define sikh religion.

Without going into the nitty-gritty of the judgment and beliefs of sikh religion, was it fair on the part of the sikh community members to gang up against their own kids in order to deny education. What was established to wrangle out of the clutches of muslim seers and brahmins holiness has become subject to myriads interpretations. The kids ought to have been forgiven for “it is manlike to punish but godlike to forgive”. Was not giani zail singh, who was charged a tankhahia (liable to religious punishment) following the army action within the golden temple precincts, exonerated?

The entire mission of the tenth guru has been summed: ‘a Sikh must worship Akal alone, must take the Word to be the measure of personal conduct, must consider the Khalsa physical form to be ideal and must ever strive for the welfare of the entire humanity’. Time has come to introspect whether the denial of seat is an act towards welfare of the entire community.

Yeh Dil Mange More! - Amritsar - Final day

Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. – Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The second day of our trip ought to have been pretty relaxed one. But yeh dil mange more! The name “Nangal Dam” was etched in our minds and there was an itch to visit that dam since our Shatabdi was at 5 in the evening. Not that we did not have any alternate place to visit. There were again few temples to visit. But the question doing the rounds in our minds was that “was temple necessary?”. Bala posed to me the question and reading his mind, I gave preference to the dam. The dam was around 3 hours drive from Amritsar, around Pathankot. We would not have ventured but we had a car at our disposal. My uncle’s client readily agreed to furnish us with a car. I guess, the luck was on our side, for the time being.

We woke up around 8 and had a quick second round of Jallianwala Bagh and the Golden Temple since snap during the day-time was must. The car was to come around half past 9. We even had our breakfast. “Amritsari kulche” with slabs of yellow butter was the chosen one and we had paneer variety and other variety. Bala ordered lavishly but I was able to sense what was to come with those Kulches and amul butter. I saw Bala running out of breath for he has this aversion for butters; a kind of mental block. I ordered him to get some fresh air; he went and came back to finish those Kulches. But the butter had the better of him and soon he collapsed. He re-gained his form only after I sprinkled some holy water and patted him. The worst was over, I thought.

We hopped into the Skoda around quarter to 11 and it took us quarter past 11 to hit the so-called highway after the fuel stop. I would never call it a highway and I declared so within half an hour of the journey for the road was very narrow and was heavily trafficked. Or being in a Skoda, we were in a disadvantageous position. And the route had as many as 4 railway crossings. While bala was busy shooting the Punjab, J&K and H.P. buses, I could, from the back seat, easily gauge that the car was only doing around 50 kph and the driver had predicted a running time of around 2 hours to the dam. Bala now and then asked and tried to re-assure me that time was well in control. But the passage of time is simply an illusion created by our brains. Soon I suggested the option of “turning back” and I announced that, “we shall miss our train”. He opined that this was the age to have some thrills, “so what we miss the train”. And the car kept on moving. Apparently the driver had some contact at the dam who could show us the dam. It was only around 1:40 pm that we saw something resembling a dam. We were pretty close to the Jammu border. Bala was excited and wished we could touch the border. I had other agenda on my mind; to catch the train. It was no dam but only “sluice gates” or ‘barrage’ which, is quite near to my home over Hindon Canal. On enquiry, we came to know that the actual dam on river raavi was still 20 km away. It was impossible to reach the dam. We had set a deadline of 2 pm to start. Having some time at our hands, we landed to see the river raavi flow nearby and happily clicked some shots and even had sugarcane juice.

I was more or less relaxed for I had made my mind to catch the alternate train. We had three hours to catch our train. But who knew that a Sikh procession at bhatala would force us to make a de-tour and that a train would bother us at all the four railway crossings. Bala’s face was all drained and colorless. The driver was unable to accelerate the big car to the hilt for there was no road. At five, we were some 10 kms away from the station. And the driver decided to take the car to the factory where its owner was waiting. Bala, till date, is of the opinion that “we could have still tried”. It was like Dharmendra trying to catch the burning train; he did for he was on bike but we failed. We went to the station hoping some miracle. The first platform was empty. Bala got the tickets to Delhi and we were to board a night train. I was only worried about breaking the news to folks at home. It was our first solo travel sans the family and here was the result. Bala had trotted the globe on his own but it was our first joint venture. Somehow I communicated the news, which was received with mild rebuke. It was a train to Bihar and we were able to get two seats given the power of money and amenable nature of man. I ensured that bala retained the seat till Delhi and had a sound sleep for he was to catch the 6 am flight to Bombay. I had a good sleep for 3 hours. The train was jam packed being a train to east side. People lay everywhere, huddled and shivering in the cold. Bala, on the previous day, was all eager to have the lunch in Shatabdi and I had told him that we would be having it while returning. And we only had some rotis and sabji sans paneer and ice-cream.

The train was on time and we were out by half past 4. But ‘delay’ hit us back with vengeance. His car driver screwed up and he eventually landed around quarter past 15. By that time, Bala had to re-schedule his flight and he pounced on the driver who came up with all sundry excuses.

In the end, the dammed dam did us. And we still laugh seeing those pictures of the barrage and at our folly. Someone has rightly said, “experience is retrospect knowledge”.

Amritsar - wagah border - day 1

Wagah Border! How this place crept in the ‘to visit’ list, I do not know. Neither would bala. Perhaps influence of Bollywood. But I have not seen Wagah in any of Sunny Deol’s or Vijayakant’s film. Are reasons required to visit unseen and unexplored places?

‘The Border’ was suggested by bala in 2007 for the family trip but our folks wanted a pilgrimage tour and thus the border was earmarked for our ‘first together’ trip. Apart from the ‘border’, Golden Temple and Jallianwala Bagh completed our itinerary. The tatkal tickets in Swaran Shatabdi for to and fro and the opportunity to capture the border and golden temple revved up our imagination. Though the weather was cold and damp, our spirits were like bulb in a lamp; we of course returned as fused bulbs.

Armed with sweaters and jackets, we started to station around half past five in the morning on 9th of Feb 2008. It was a shivering auto trip despite the mufflers. The blue coach, not immaculately shining, greeted us at the platform. We boarded and exchanged our seats with a family coming from Canada/Britain heading to Pughwara. After all luggage tags and whiskied breath never lie.

Having docked our luggage, we ran to shoot the cream and orange colored electric engine with our lens. Couple of quick poses and clicks, we ran unabatedly and boarded the train. Having settled, we waited anxiously for the engine to muster courage to pull the coaches. Meanwhile, bala was all praise for the interiors and remarked, “it just resembles an aeroplane”. Ten minutes past its scheduled time, the platform started drifting apart. Indeed, delay is the signature style of Indians and our Railway!

The train slowly chugged its way through poverty and decay, demonstrating to us the concomitant of progress. As the train picked up its speed, cramped hutments and filth slowly gave to greenery and signs of prosperity. Mr. Helios slowly peeped out and its rays permeated the fog over the green fields and soon our tinted windows. The warmth forced us to remove our jacket and as we settled, driver of 2031 sped past Patiala, Karnal and Kurukshetra, constantly honking. The pace was maintained till we reached the outskirts of Ambala, our first stop; Ludhiana, Phagwara, Jalandhar and Beas followed and bala pointed to me that, “we are diagonally cutting across Punjab”. But before we disembarked, breakfast was served to us and we were hoping for the lunch too and even had enquired unabashedly, but I knew that there would be no lunch and I was correct.

Around half past one, we were outside the station, hunting auto-walla. I tend to choose and reject auto’s based on the appearance of auto-wallas. I am just caught in-between a popular saying, “face is not the mirror of the soul”. We hopped into an old man’s auto and he dropped us at Sood’s guest house and charged us only nominally. A circuitous route had to be adopted through bye-lanes since autos were not permitted near or on the road leading to the Golden Temple.

Roads constitute the heart to any city and city chokes if there is congestion; but what if there are no roads? Roads, lanes and bye-lanes, it is all the same in Amritsar. No work was being done for the people by the elected people. On way to the guest-house, huge posters and banners of Mr. Sidhu greeted us and we were informed that Mr. Sidhu had donated 1 crore and that people were largely happy with his performance.

Wagah border was our immediate agenda and we had to leave around half past three so as to reach there around 5 pm. We quickly had our lunch and a softy too in the peak winter and the guest-house attendant arranged for a shared Qualis at Rs. 200 each. We occupied the front seats, four more persons in the back seat and the driver was waiting for four more passengers. The vehicle also had a starting problem and half-an-hour was wasted for full occupancy. I showed my impatience but he assured me of timely delivery. We again lost considerable time wading through the city traffic and I broached the “road development” topic and the driver was pretty optimistic that things were going in the right direction and a half-built fly-over showed itself as evidence saying, “hello! Dilliwale, look at me”. And we soon hit upon the Grand Trunk road and around half-past four we reached our destination. I had a fair idea of what I was going to see, the march and antics of the soldiers posted on either sides, but I was there to feel “the border”, things which make it; green grass and blue sky is what I could lay my sight upon. Thankfully the sky is still free of electrified barbed wires, tall brick-built arches and iron gates. What was going in Bala’s mind, I cannot comment. Our side was brimming with we the people and on the other side, there were handful of them. Even at the border we have special treatment syndrome i.e. seats adjacent to the gate were meant for people with some kind of nexus. Strings have to be pulled in India for everything. The atmosphere was all charged up and a man instructed the public only to shout vande matram and Bharat mata ki jai and not to use any derogatory words for Pakistan. And soon six men from BSF set off in a peculiar gait, a sort of fast-forward march past amidst cheers and claps and gates on both the sides were opened and then followed peculiar kicks and strong stamping of foots as if both the forces were threatening each other. We were also asked to do the tribal hooting when the soldiers on the other side performed antics. Ropes were thrown and exchanged and slowly and steadily the flags of both the countries were brought down amidst bugle sound and the public was instructed to stand up and not to use any slogans and our men came back and folded the tri-color and before the gates were closed for the day, Pakistani bus arrived from our side. Nonetheless, the gates were closed and were again opened for the bus. Bala had postponed the photo-shoot with the bus and now he was dumbstruck as he watched the bus disappear. The change of guards ceremony evoked mixed feelings in me for here at Atari-Wagah and Ferozpur border, guards of both the countries carried out exercises in-sync while elsewhere soldiers of Pakistan open fire and try to infiltrate. Somehow love tends to stop at the border!

With this the “retreat ceremony” came to an end. As soon as this was announced, bala with other people rushed towards the gate, perhaps in an endeavor to reach the “no man’s land”. And I rushed to trace him out. He was there, very close to the gate and asked me to press the click button. Some more pics here and there; with Mr. Harjeet Singh, the man who was in-charge of the proceedings, besides the barbed wire fences and a board reading : India the largest democracy in the world welcomes you and we slowly walked towards the parking area. Perhaps, with dejection that the main agenda was over so soon. We talked about another trip possibly with our spouses and kids down the year; if, as and when the accident happens.

Everyone was waiting for us in the car and the driver drove like F1 champ. I conducted a quick interview with the driver, Mr. Harkulvinder Sodhi. I was impressed with his driving skills, racy but had control for he had driven in Middle East and was planning to go to Canada wherein his sister was residing. He now, as I write this piece, must be practicing at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Bala had arranged for a car next day for the Nangal dam expedition and had charted the plan for the night. Dinner and a quick tour of Jallianwala Bagh and to Harimander Sahib to watch palki sahab. Bala’s choice of guest-house was excellent for a five minutes walk down the lane and a left lead us to Jallianwala Bagh and a right lead us to the Golden Temple.

It was seven when we visited the Bagh. With lights every where and fountain at the central, it was a pleasant night indeed. But my mind travelled to April 13, 1913, when the madman dyer ordered indiscriminate firing. The Baisakhi gathering turned into a nightmare for the people assembled there. A memorial stands now sorrounded by lush green grass with notice boards displaying the bullet marks. The martyrs well is all sealed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_Massacre http://www.punjabilok.com/misc/freedom/jallianwala_bagh.htm

We went straight to another place over which lot of blood has been spilled over the years, rather century’s and the last one in 1984 when the Indian Army hunted down Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala. The Golden Temple! We covered our head with the yellow cloth and bala’s one came nicely. Once inside, my mind was wondering as to how the tanks came in; such a huge complex it was with many entrances and many hostels. A mind boggling exercise carried out by the Indian Army brought out by sheer lust for power coveted by Indira Gandhi and Giani Zail Singh. Amritsar:Indira Gandhi’s Last Battle by Mark Tully and Satish Jacob is an interesting read. The book also takes us through the bloody battles fought by Sikhs to save their religion and our land from invaders. The complex also houses a museum which depicts in detail the struggles by Gurus and their bravery. The Adi Granth, the Holy Scripture, is now revered at the Temple. Daily the granth is brought from Akal Takht to the temple and at night is taken back there by golden paalki. Having finished “the clicks” and parikrama, we showed our reverence and bala instructed to wait for the service. This was bala’s style of killing time. Somebody had instructed him to witness the paalki sahib and he cajoled me to wait. It was a long chilly wait and finally the paalki arrived. The granth was placed and taken out and it was rush hour. Bala again disappeared and I was caught in a wrong line; the service line. One uncle pushed me to do the service, which was to hold one end out of paalki. At that time the question in my mind was “hey! Whether I can?”. Nonetheless, I did that service praying and had the chance to repeat after couple of minutes. I was only looking for bala. I met him near the Takht and he narrated to me the procession. All thanks to bala; the wait was indeed a worthy wait. Some more clicks and we promised to return in the morning for I wanted to capture the golden temple, standing in its full glory, under the sun. It was a tiresome day and I remember only hitting the bed. We slept like babies. Of course, with dress on with blankets.

The game heats up! – Day 2 in Corbett

The alarm failed to alarm us. It was by chance that I was up around quarter past five and sounded my alarm to bala, “we are late”. Of course, we were late for our rendezvous with tigers and we hurriedly dressed and packed. It transpired that bala had set the alarm for 5 pm. A couple of pictures and videos here and there followed as we checked out and it was quarter to six when we checked out from gairal gates.

Early morning happens to be the best time to do “walk the talk” with tigers. Irshaad showed us lot of pug marks of male and female tigers all around but was still not willing to press on accelerator. We even saw a sambhar deer in an alert pose and irshaad was able to guess that the tiger was somewhere near. Meanwhile, hari’s jeep overtook us while we waited at a spot. Soon hari’s jeep came in full reverse mode and they excitedly told us about the spotting of a tigress which had crossed he track and run into the grassland. My heart was bleeding! If only we had maintained some decent speed, we would have spotted the tiger and taken few quick snaps. That was not to be! We all did a turn around and chose to wait near the grassland wherein a tusker was merrily roaming. Some more sambhars were in an uneasy state, these animals have a knack of smelling dangers. Hari’s jeep quicky left the scene while we waited there in hope of spotting the tigress. Alas! We decided to proceed further. As we carried on, a colleague of the driver with foreign tourists was waiting beneath a tree and we learnt that this party spotted the very same tigress after couple of hours. Indeed it is all game of passion! We had missed our best chance.

The previous we were in a dilemma as to whether we should leave early to ranikhet by bus or continue with the safari in the afternoon since we had paid and then take a car to ranikhet. The afternoon safari made things clear about the prospects of tiger sighting. Hence, we had decided not to take the afternoon safari and proceed by bus which was around four hour journey.

Clueless as to where the tigress might appear, we proceeded towards dhikala, to the reservoir area through a different track. We also visited the poppy fields and crossed ramganga river

and went further and saw more beautiful birds. We had our breakfast at dhikala (Maggie and butter toast) and lazed around by clicking monkeys. At dhikala we saw a beautiful bird in pink Capri and she made our day. She was traveling in the canter which is yet another option to see Corbett which operates from 6 am to 12 noon. Canter, is typically meant for those who do not have reservation within the park. We next hit the sambhar track and stopped at the machan (tower). Hereafter, we were on our way to dhangari gate, kissing goodbye to the forest. Bala had yet another agenda which he pressed, “bhaiya, let e drive the jeep for some time”. The driver did not budge and cited some administrative reason. By 11 am we were out and I left the forest promising “I’d be back to see the tigers”. Bala, once on the highway, again pressed on his agenda and this time irshaad gave the vehicle. Thankfully, bus to ranikhet cut short the drive and we boarded the bus.

This was my first visit to a wildlife sanctuary and Corbett forest indeed obliged us by revealing various flavors. We narrowly missed tiger spotting, ran into wild tusker, saw beautiful birds, enjoyed the coolness of sal trees and fragrance of poppy plant, ride on various tracks were exciting and view of ramganga and grasslands was riveting. But is it right to disturb the forest and animals natural habitat? This is so because we humans do not take lightly when tigers or leopards stray into our boundary.

Travel advice is book accomodation inside the park in advance and tourism department always routes accomodaion through agents in order to gain commissions. Try to stay atleast for 2 days and morning safaris are the best time to spot tigers. Try to get placed at dhikala which happens to be the heart of corbett. Gairal's disadvantage is the distance and also it does not have elephant ride option.

Before I wrap up this piece, more news about tiger population has flowed in; panna has zilch. Apparently tranquilizer overdose for collaring has been cited as reason which made poaching more easier. Some allied news: recently, jairam ramesh, the Minister of State for Environment and Forests, visited Corbett to assess the situation and in his first visit, he spotted a tigress. Given the sycophantic attitude of the forest officials, the tigress had to show herself before the minister. The “pug mark” method for counting the tiger also came under sharp attack. The project tiger stands disbanded and national tiger conservation authority has been set up. Committees and authorities are well known for chai and samosa discussions. It requires someone of indira gandhi’s stature to save our national animal. Can mr. singh save his needy counterpart?

Tiger poaching is a complex issue having wide web; the demand: for use in chupas (traditional vest coats of Tibetans, the poachers: paid by men like sansar chand and the savers: belinda wright , valmiki thapar to name a few. And of course the forest officials, rangers and other staff complete the picture. Click these links to read more:
http://www.indiatogether.org/2009/feb/env-sanchand.htm
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134268/page/2 http://tehelka.com/story_main38.asp?filename=Ne120408tale_tiger.asp

God punishes those who…

Right from our childhood our mind is conditioned to believe that “be at your best behavior or else god will punish you by piercing your eyes etc.” This indeed forces us as kids to be at our best behavior i.e. not to demand toys, ice-creams, not to tell lies etc. Indeed, as a kid I was afraid of huge pic of kaali dangling her tongue out – it was a red dcm calendar and couple of year back I found the same calendar in circulation. My five year old cousin, krish, got his first lesson.

While playing with two more kids at his house, the cell-phone became untraceable and when search was launched, he put the blame on a small girl saying that, “she has stolen the phone ma!”. His mother was horrified to hear this allegation. The serials were showing the effect. The little girl started crying as a measure of protest. Eventually the phone was found behind the sofa. This was not the end. His mother was preparing aaloo-puri and little krish rushed to gobble up the hot pooris and ended up with almost burnt lips. The little girl replied, “see! The god has punished you for lying”.

Elsewhere, young men and women are recruited to spread terror in the name of securing place in jannat. Do we need an external motivation in form of god and religion to do and not to do certain acts?

Panchayati Araj!

Mahatma perceived panchayati raj as an attempt towards village self-governance and party-less democracy and the 73rd amendment to the constitution in the year 1992 laid down the structure.

Over the years, like religion, panchayati system too fell for poli-tics and corruption whose main agenda became mobilization of votes by tightening its grip on the rural folks. In off-season, the system is used as an instrument to administer personal vendetta in inter caste-marriage; punishment ranging from a strip parade of women, beating and graduating to honor killing. And the state machinery happens to be a mute spectator.

Around july 22, ved pal who had gone to fetch his newly wed wife from her village armed with court’s order and police protection force was lynched under the order’s of the panchayat. The panchayat had disapproved the relationship since it was of the opinion that the bride and groom belonged to the same gothra. Now gothra here was too liberally interpreted; the bride and the groom belonged to two villages which had brotherly relations.

The young man who, backed by court’s order and police force, had gone to meet his wife instead met his death. The police as usual ended up saying, “we are trying to nab the accused and have booked the case”.

Post-killing, the girl has surfaced and given statement that she was forced to elope, drugged and coerced into marriage and that she has already filed divorce case.

Eclipse

I told my boss of intention of coming late to office on 22nd July. He asked, "is everything ok?" and I said, "it is grahan! I would be starting late" and he moaned, "we are living in 21st century yaar!". Back at home, my mom protested when I declared my intentions of capturing the partial eclipse which delhi sky was to offer me. However I had resolved to capture the eclipse. I started the day at 4:45 am by having my bath and by 6:20 I had religiously chanted various mantras, eyes fixed at the sky. It was cloudy and I prayed for view of atleast partial eclipse. I was ready with my sunglasses and digi. And suddenly the lord almighty answered my prayer and I saw surya bhagawan emerge out and I ran to my terrace to capture few photos.

fashion & cinema - difference

A silly viewer posed a cliché question to an upcoming and fast disappearing actress, “what is the difference between modeling and acting career?”. And of course, she went on defending both the streams. However, answer at lightening speed came from a keen observant of day-to-day happenings, my dad, “the difference lies in ‘wardrobe malfunction’ and ‘no wardrobe’”.

Excuse me – Mr. Kandasamy

Mangayarkarasi delivers words of wisdom every saturday (podhigai) on tamizl, arunagirinathar and murugan aka kandasamy, the tamizl kadavul (god). Last saturday stress was being laid on murugan being assigned the role of destiny changer. I immediately questioned my mom, ‘why murugan? Cannot vishnu do this?’ These questions cannot be answered, however, the anchor did. Shiva allotted the portfolio of destiny to murugan since brahma feared murugan. To substantiate her point, the anchor quoted some verses from kandar alangaram and asked the viewers to read kandar alangaram daily.

This prompted my mom to pick her thirupugzhal book and locate kandar alangaram; she said, “what all slokams can I recite? I am already reciting kavacham, anubuthi and learning thirupugzhal. When will murugan address my worries?”

I said to her that I have a new slokam to please murugan and “hey excuse me mr. kandasamy, oru coffee kudipom come with me…” blared from my pc and my mom said, “poda!”

Game of Passion! - Day 1

…was the cliché phrase which we encountered throughout our jeep safari at Corbett from irshad, our driver. Of course, me and bala were there to see the ‘tiger’.

On 30th april we boarded the ranikhet link express from the old delhi railway station. Before we could leave to station, we received last minute safety sermons from my mom and my two aunts; one of them remarked, “do not tease the animals” and I replied, “are we allowed to tease girls?” Bala had retained his meru cab and we reached the station around 9:30 pm. The driver was chirpy fellow and I enjoyed brief chit-chat. Bala’s digi came out and he clicked the beautiful red building. This was my first time at old delhi station; the drizzle and the crowd at the platform made me sweat more. The station was fully occupied; people like me carrying baggage’s, others readying themselves to sleep on the platform. Also the station has peculiar method of numbering the platforms and we could not decipher the system and had to chase coolies. I was quiet frustrated and the delayed train added more perspiration. The train rolled in 30 minutes late. We boarded the train, chit-chatted, had fanta and bala went busy on con-call. I watched the train pulling out us from roads, river, houses, tensions, deadlines….

We were to reach ramnagar around 5 am and we arrived bang on time. Ramnagar station was small and neat station. Autos and open jeeps arrived in frenzy and picked the passengers. We too boarded an auto for Corbett motel and in five minutes we were dropped. We were given a room and we dozed for a while because the papers to enter the park would be ready only by nine. We met the proprietor of the motel, karan bhai, a wild life enthu and we were charmed by his reels of encounters with tigers and celebrities while we had our breakfast. The jeep also arrived late and it took another 15 minutes to obtain the papers.

(On way to gairal)
Quarter past 10 we entered the park through the dhangari gate. Our mobiles had ceased to catch signals long back and we were out of leash. One hour drive took us to gairal wherein bala had booked a room; en-route, irshad introduced us many birds especially the sound of laughing jackass. We came across wild elephant and deer’s and with these immediate sightings, we were optimistic to run into tiger. We checked into our fan-less room and hot air was blowing. We had our lunch at the canteen and headed towards the ramganga river. The receptionist had instructed us not to hit the river and bala did just that. I followed him in order to keep his within my sights. The river was not abundantly flowing but water was enough to sustain the wildlife. Few quick snaps and I dragged bala back to cottage.

Bala wanted to carry on with the safari for it would take time to reach the other gate at dhikala and starting at 1 would give us more time. The park has its fundas of timing for the well being of the animals. The driver was taken aback when bala suggested that we start now and refused saying that, ‘it is rest time now’ and bala wondered 'who’s in-charge?”'

(river ramganga)
Back at room, we were wondering how we would survive the hot air blowing across and wondering so, we slept for we were energy sapped. We woke up just in time and hunted irshad out of his bin and we started hoping it would be “jab we met tiger!” moment. A guide too accompanied us for the safari since the charges include guide’s fees too. The pace of the jeep was slow right from the start and I felt quite frustrated. We stopped at a view point to spot a baby gharial (specie of crocodile) and then we were introduced to an owl and some eagle. Around 4 we were near dhikala, heart of the park and we were on our way to the ramganga reservoir. The landscape changed dramatically from cool sal trees to grassland; indeed a riveting experience. We spotted a herd of elephants playing merrily in the grassland. The reservoir was quoted as tiger spotting place since deer’s would flock there. Indeed we saw a big group of deer and a young sick elephant (tusker). The tiger still eluded us but the reservoir area is to be seen. The driver bluffed that the area was under water till couple of days ago however the soil gave no indication of being so wet.

Next we hit the ‘sambhar deer track’ which was said to be the tiger’s favorite track. Even here we spotted nothing. Next we were shown the track leading to kaanda (another accomodation place) located at an upper region. While we saw more new birds, the fragrance of poppy in the air was mind blowing.

We crossed a small wodden brigde over ramganga of which karan bhai had talked off when bala questioned the prospects of crossing over the river. I am sure bala must have imagined something much more spectacular. The watch was referred to and now we were traveling at full speed towards gairal because of the time restrictions. This urgency of our driver was absent during the whole day. On our way back, we heard a lone deer bark and our driver sensed it as a ‘call’ and we stopped for a while to realize that it was a ‘false alarm’. We were indeed disappointed that we could not sight a tiger and bala was now wishing for an encounter with wild elephant as our driver had narrated couple of encounter stories wherein a tusker had toppled jeeps and canter.

We were only five minutes away from gairal when the drama unfolded. Two jeeps before us had been stalled by a youngish tusker; soon 4 more jeeps piled behind us. The tusker came down the narrow lane and we hit the reverse gear. The tusker was in no hurry and he stood, ate leaves and played by the pool of water. Our driver, who had been narrating tiger encounter stories during the day, went pale with fear and our guide invoked lord ganesha. It was nearly seven and was pitch dark. The tusker slowly started drifting towards the river and the first jeep driver, rizwan, managed to escape. This act of his, however, was not taken well by the tusker’s huge ego and he charged towards us again. More waiting followed and the tusker moved towards his left, into the grass. The jeeps roared into life and sped away and I saw the tusker giving a chase to the last jeep.

We all assembled inside the compound of gairal to conduct autopsy of the incident and fixed the blame on rizwan. Electricity was to remain available only for couple of hours and we hurried to re-charge the batteries of digi. We chatted with our neighbors for a while, hari and pravin, who had come from delhi like us but with no arrangements and were solely riding on their luck from train to accommodation. We had our buffet dinner and chatted for some time and hit bed around half past nine after fixing an early alarm. Bala was dead tired and he faded into dream-o-sphere quickly. Electricity went out at 10; I finished off the remaining mazza and lay wondering as to when sleep would find me. It did finally….

panned photos

Last week I surfed lot about 'panning', 'apperture settings' and 'shutter settings' and thought of playing with my Powershot A710 by switching from auto mode to different manual modes. Being inherently lazy, I was all along happy to click on the auto mode.

Today I decided to venture out and experiment a little on the street. As I busied myself with clicking, reviewing, retaining and deleting, my objects, though stared at me, thankfully did not get down and questioned me. Here are some of the panned shots:

ticket to moksha

The word 'moksha' means deliverance from cycle of death and re-birth if one holds such belief. "Ticket to moksha" is a ticket, when purchased, assures one riddance from death and birth cycle. The word 'purchase' brings into picture flow of money; in India folks are selling and purchasing "ticket to moksha"!

A friend of my uncle gladly revealed that he had purchased ticket to moksha by paying some lakh of money. What more,he had got rid of deadly disease of cancer by paying 30 lakhs; all payments made self-proclaimed godman (babaji) who cures only the wealthy vide "pranic healing".

Hearing such magic tales, he confided to top members of the priory of sion and immediate sanction was accorded to Mission "Job"; one of my distant relative in land of pink slips was out of job for nearly for the past 7 months and finding job was proving to be a hell of a task. Job was important since job gives the passport to marry.

The pranic healer was apprised and he diagnosed the problem to be "short size of kundalini". He promised that once kundalini resumes its normal lenght, my distant relative would regain all his confidence and job too. About 20 K was given and the mission commenced. However, the priory, being impatient as ever, started ringing the pranic healer about the results. The pranic healer added a caveat, "results would show only after 48 days after commencement of process".

Bang on the 48th day, the distant relative of mine secured "the job". The priory members were all happy. The pranic healer informed my uncle that, "you have 4 blocks in your heart".

Heroes have gone out; quacks have come in; the reign of quacks has not ended with the nineteenth century. The sceptre is held with a firmer grasp; the empire has a wider boundary. We are all the slaves of quackery in one shape or another. Indeed, one portion of our being is always playing the successful quack to the other. - Thomas Carlyle

Temples: for gods & people

Ours is a country of temples; rather of rising temples. Modern temples come up overnight or gradually over a pavement or at a corner of road and the process starts with an installation of small idol and then claiming right over it and then camping there itself to perform pujas; the whole process is calculated to grab public land. Slowly, on public land and funds contributed by faceless people, these temples attain legitimacy. This can even start with a humble milestone depicting kms. Some carry boards “pracheen mandir”, “pandav mandir” etc. to pull crowd and installation of shani bhagwan ensures regular Saturday crowd plus the donations. Governments also use this façade to grab public land. Akshardam Delhi happens to be the case in point. Built during the bjp regime, all building laws were flouted to grab yamuna riverbed; “land use” was amended, great chunk was allotted and construction was carried out at war footing pace and thus pil was thwarted. Ironically baps was keeping regular eye on the games hearing in the delhi high court!

However, for a change, modi was in news for right reasons; complying with the directions of gujarat high court in re illegal encroachments by temples, around 200 temples have been demolished. Similar line of action needs to be adopted by all States to bring down temples encroaching upon public land.

Veering to an allied topic, temples for actresses are on rise. It all started with khusboo; fans built a temple for her near Trichy during her heydays. However, the same was razed down when she commented on aids and chastity. Now it seems construction activity is going on for namitha at nellai and nayantara at alvakurichi. Tamil fan clubs, it seems have undertaken a solemn pledge to usher the age of kali. Thankfully! This phenomenon is not to be seen in bollywood. I also read about upcoming temple for dhoni bhayya; this happens only in India!