Incredible India

in Den Haag.

Saw a couple of trams and buses advertising the
incredible that is India! Felt good. :-)

हे भलते अवघड असते

हे भलते अवघड असते

गाडी सुटली, रुमाल हलले, क्षणात डोळे टचकन् ओले
गाडी सुटली, पडले चेहरे, क्षण साधाया हसरे झाले

गाडी सुटली, हातामधुनी हात कापरा तरी सुटेना
अंतरातली ओली माया तुटूदे म्हटले तरी तुटेना

का रे इतका लळा लावुनी नंतर मग ही गाडी सुटते
डोळ्यांदेखत सरकत जाते आठवणींचा ठिपका होते

गाडी गेली फलाटावरी नि:श्वासांचा कचरा झाला
गाडी गेली डोळ्यामधल्या निर्धाराचा पारा फुटला

हे भलते अवघड असते... हे भलते अवघड असते...
कुणी प्रचंड आवडणारे... ते दूर दूर जाताना...
डोळ्यांच्या देखत आणि नाहीसे लांब होताना...

डोळ्यातील अडवून पाणी... हुंदका रोखुनी कंठी...
तुम्ही केविलवाणे हसता अन् तुम्हास नियती हसते...
हे भलते अवघड असते...

तरी असतो पकडायाचा... हातात रुमाल गुलाबी...
वार्‍यावर फडकवताना... पाह्यची चालती गाडी...
ती खिडकीतून बघणारी अन् स्वतः मधे रमलेली...
गजरा माळावा इतुके... ती सहज अलविदा म्हणते...
हे भलते अवघड असते...

तुम्ही म्हणता मनास आता, हा तोडायाचा सेतू...
इतक्यात म्हणे ती - माझ्या कधी गावा येशील का तू?
ती सहजच म्हणुनी जाते... मग सहजच हळवी होते...
गजर्‍यातील दोन कळ्या अन् हलकेच ओंजळीत देते...
हे भलते अवघड असते...

कळते की गेली वेळ... ना आता सुटणे गाठ...
आपुल्याच मनातील स्वप्ने... घेऊन मिटावी मूठ...
ही मूठ उघडण्यापूर्वी... चल निघुया पाऊल म्हणते...
पण पाऊल निघण्यापूर्वी... गाडीच अचानक निघते...
हे भलते अवघड असते...

परतीच्या वाटेवरती गुदमरून जड पायांनी...
ओठावर शीळ दिवाणी... बेफिकीर पण थरथरती...
पण क्षण क्षण वाढत असते... अंतर हे तुमच्यामधले...
मित्रांशी हसतानाही... हे दु:ख चरचरत असते...

हे भलते अवघड असते….

Time flies

It did atleast last week. Blinked and.. I am here..
on a Sunday already :(

Moved into my new apartment on Monday eve and was
busy setting it up. Finally, stopped living out of my suitcases.
Work has been hectic too .. and its absolutely nothing but
work for around 9 hrs in the day in the least.

Hoping for a slightly better week this one.

Eventful day

Friday was. Got myself registered at the IND in the morning.
Went to check out some houses in the afternoon. Everything
is awfully expensive out here. :( So booked a pretty expensive
apartment at the end of the day - could do nothing about it :(

And then in the evening went to a Casino.. that was interesting.
Made 20 euros out of nothing :) paid for my pizza that night :)

Thats all... more later.

Off again...

to The Hague, Netherlands this time.

It appears now (to my mom) that Goddess Durga
didn't want to let me go before Kojagiri (5 days after
Dusshera, since she is 'prasanna' on me). The logicial
explanation to this (as per me) is that I postponed it
by 2 months and then the consulate delayed it by
another 2 weeks and here I am... being showered with
blessings from the Goddess :)

Whatever, I hope she smiles down on me through my
next stint as it is a challenging one. I have a gut feel
though that I am gonna shine brilliantly through this
one .. as always .. hehe ;)

Den Haag (or The Hague as it is known in English) is a
cosy sea side city, an hour's drive from Amsterdam.
I visited it earlier this year and liked it instantly. NL
in general has more genial feel to it than Germany, which
is a little uptight.Anywho. The Hague is the pseudo capital
of the NL and hosts almost all of its royal and government
offices. It is home to around 150 international organisations
including the UN orgs and others.

So this time my target is to cover the Nordic countries...
though I will have to wait until Feb/Mar for the cold to
be bearable for me. I don't think I will be able to manage
to eat a reindeer till then.. but lets see :)

Cheeni kum hai...

cheeni kum hai...
thodi thodi tujh me hai kum...
kum kum hai...

Trying to reduce my sugar intake u see..
M too sweet anyway.. :P

A Sun kissed Night

The quiet Night
whispers into my ear
asks me for things
I can no longer bear

I told her a few
and she sighed
to my surprise
then she cried

She can't see
the one she loves
If he is around
she has to leave
For it can't be Night
if it is day
Will be the end
she hears them say

Shocked, I hear
soothe her a little
Uncontrollable
weak and brittle

A ray of light
comes into Night
Travels north
Where its always light
She finds him
the one so missed
Nature's wonder
a Night sun kissed

Kutte... Kaminey

There is this dialoge in the recently released "Kaminey"
which goes something like...
"One doesn't get screwed by the path one chooses... but
rather by the path not chosen"

Well, if you analyze this further you will notice that if you
choose a path, then obviously you are not choosing the
other (unless you are a mentally-handicapped convict
with no choice but to serve your sentence).
So you will get screwed for not choosing path B.

Now instead, if you choose the unchosen path, ie path B,
you are still choosing one and not choosing the other (path A)
... which means that you will still get screwed (for not choosing
path A this time).

So no matter which path you choose, "getting screwed" is
a given, regardless of the path chosen. Hence the above
statement is proved wrong.

But another axiom overrules all other theories in the movie
and that is "Life is a bitch" ("Duniya bahot kutti hai" or something
to that effect).... The important improvisation coming from the
theorem I proved wrong is "any which way"...

So moral of the movie... "Life is a bitch... any which way".. :)

Loved this one instantly

Silly is a natural state - Serious is what you are forced to do
until you can be silly again.

"You can't eat the scenery"

....is what my travel partner said on the second day of our trip to the
beautiful coastline of Maharashtra. If you overlook the acco and the food I
would say the trip was good. The journey was a walk in the clouds...
literally. Winding roads, large water bodies, lush green mountains, clouds
floating by your side, numerous waterfalls - small and big, the rough and
tough terrain of the Sahyadri's, the adventure of the Ghat roads - what more
does one need to feel like being in heaven?! It was a beautiful drive.

Our accomodation was far from that. Listen to this.
Going by the "new improved" look of the tourism corporation of Maharashtra
and on recommendations from a few friends who have stayed in MTDC
resorts earlier, I did the blunder, well, a mistake to be honest, of booking a
room in a MTDC resort. The charges looked like that of a good hotel in town
and I dreamt of a beautiful sea-facing room with rich carpets and plush
sofas. (Too dreamy after my trips in Europe.. ah even the cheapest hotels
were so good and the staff so cordial. The breakfasts were lavish and kept
you going for hours.Aaah.) Alas, the govt never lets us forget the problems
faced by a developing nation. It was a basic room with bare minimum
amount of hygiene maintained ( I still doubt it). The bed was a concrete slab
covered with marble - yes, don't faint - as a reminder perhaps to increase
the tourism to the state of UP. The matresses, well let's just say the marble
bed would have been softer. The curtains looked like they had been washed
when the leftover marble was brought from Agra. The lights were hardly
there to make the setting more natural (eerie?!) The toileteries - I gave
myself a pat on the back for taking my own set with me. And this saga
continues into the kitchen. The restaurant on site serves you with any dish
on the planet - as long as you stick to their 10 item menu :) And what does it
take to make sandwiches btw? Well, not much if you have bread. (Imagine
me crying hoarse for not getting fish on a trip to the coast... I can't either..
but here I am.. dreaming about fish after a 2 day beach trip :( ) All this
excellent service and food comes at a cost and it was well worth the
stupidity I had displayed while booking this place. So, though the location
of the resort was good everything else left much much much more to
improvisation. We kinda renamed MTDC as "More Torture from Devil's
Corporation". I think this one suits.

What was surprising was though the "no meat, no drinks, no evil (, no living
;))" period was over and we could officially start eating meat - we just
couldn't find fish anywhere on the coast. Not in Harihareshwar, not in
Shrivardhan and neither in Dive agar. Nope. It was highly disappointing.
Dil ke armaan.... samandar me beh gaye. (So I dug into the first fish item I
saw after returning to base. May be the fish were touring too.)
Anyway, so thats the tragic story of my fishing trip.

But like I said earlier, the drive more than compensated for the food fiasco.
The drive from Harihareshwar to Shrivardhan and further on to Dive agar
was along the coast and it was amazing to drive with the hills on one side
and the sea on the other. The beaches as expected were dirty due to
monsoon and not worth setting foot on. Visited a couple of historic temples
around and it was time to head back.

Will post pictures soon.

What an 'org'y ;-)

Dirty minds... stop salivating. Its nothing like you think
it is .

I was meeting a friend for lunch and he being a great host
that he is.. took me to his, hold your breath... Office Cafetaria.
Yea.. but as you can guess from the title of this post, it wasn't
that bad :)

For startes, the place was clean, did not stink as much as the other
cafetaria's I have visited, the food was great and to top it all ...
it was FREE. Yep. This org he works in provides free food to its
employees.. be it at breakfast, lunch or dinner. But the quality
wasn't compromised . So it was great. I heard of the org also
promoting healthy snacking options with fruits.

Off late, after listening to a few of my friends and after being to this
jaw-dropping (literally!) cafetaria I am coming to a conclusion that
Indian org's have a lot to learn to catch up with the MNC's.

Proud Owner

of a house ... finally ! :)

Well it was a long fight... a 2 month long fight with the
builder. I didnt expect to have to fight with a builder of
such repute.. but .. they are all the same.
I am still not so satisfied with the final touches and am
in full mind to see the workings of a consumer court.

Anywho..

and then there was more...

Down with throat infection.. and I pray hard it stays at that..
what will the biggest scare of the century gripping Pune
currently.. Swine Flu... when will it "flew"???

Tragedy of errors.

Well, not exactly a tragedy, but life for some strange reason
isn't as cool as it used to be until I landed in Pune. :-(
So many chores to attend to, issues, work, traffic, colleagues
... ah... and sometimes they all converge to make me explode
like a nuclear bomb. :)

Thought

वाट चुकते की आपलं पाउल चुकीचं पड़तं ?

- Is the path wrong or the decision of choosing that path?

Monsoon Madness

Well, it was madness to the 'T'. Was one helluva ride :)

Started at 5:30 am on a lazy Sunday morning (and that
meant I had to wake up at some ungodly hour) and ended
at around 8 pm the same day, thankfully. There were
around 15-20 other jobless people ready and raring to go
Except for the virtually non-existent roads in the villages
the ride was smooth and was a joy. Every small village you
visit bears the sign "Pradhanmantri gram sadak yojana"..
and it is literally that.. you can hardly see a gram of tar in
these far flung places. It was also educational - no, I didn't
learn anything about how windmills operate and are good
for the earth or so - but what I did learn was that I am a
spoilt urban resident. It has been ages since I rode pillion
on a bike and it was extremely difficult to get used to it.
My sense of safety has so heightened after my short stint
abroad - it made the ride worse.. for the person driving :)
Ofcourse the usual signs of spoilt citizens like electricity,
good roads, communication lines, easy access to the
global market etc were absent and thats when I realised
I was spoilt :)

What I brought back with me were the innocent smiles and
the curious looks on the faces of many kids (and adults alike)
lining the path of our drive.. that is something that is hardly
visible in the urban areas. Kids today are so grown up they
hardly have any curiosity and adults are so busy that they
forget to smile at the simple joys of life.

Though most of the 350 odd km's we drove in one day were
good, the 200 odd kms of rough/hilly terrain killed my back.
Thankfully there were no breakdowns or accidents (in our group).
So, would I like to go back on more such adventures... Sure,
why not! Its fun, its thrilling, it sharpens your risk taking nature
and pushes you to try out daring adventures even more ... despite
the screwed back.

Tired

With the multitasking I am doing since being back.
And to top it was the task of filing IT Returns.

I decided to fill it up on my own this year... but alas!
The govt's policy of alleviating unemployment starts
with the ITR form. They have made it so complex and
tricky that an individual cannot fill it out on his/her own
(if you are not the "naak-ki-seedh me chalnewala" types) -
without the help of an expert! So finally went to the expert
and did my bit to help the govt in their "reduce unemployment"
drive.

I hoped to relax on Saturday...but sigh... there's work to
do today as well :-(

I hope to have fun tomorrow though. My friend is a member
of the Bullet (Royal Enfield) club in town and we are gonna
enjoy the "Monsoon Madness" event. It's an event sponsored
by Suzlon and I am excited to catch up on the windmills in
India. Excited to be using my camera again after a long break.
:-)

Sign of the times?

"LIAR"..... is what I called a friend whom I haven't spoken to
in QUITE some time now, when he told me that he missed
talking to me.

Well, I know he isn't lying. The current pace of life and the
weird problems we face these days makes us so depressed (!?)
that we go into our shells so deep that even we don't realize
how depressed we are. How many times have you promised
to call a friend and have not done it for like weeks or even
months? Can you count the number of occasions you have
turned down an offer to socialize cos you didn't feel up to it?!
There can be many such examples, but I think you get the point.

No, don't give me the standard excuse of not having enough time.
Didn't you have time when you were young? Traffic is not a good
enough reason either. You will beat the peak-hour traffic if you
desperately want to go some place. Phone-bills? There are cheaper
ways to keep in touch these days. So you see, there is no reason
for us to not keep in touch. But we don't! And its everybody.. for
some reason or the other.

Have our lives becomes so unbearable? Have we become so numb
that we don't want to put efforts to revive it? I know some of you
might say we do socialize on occasions... a wedding, a party, a picnic
or a funeral. But it stops at that doesn't it ? Not to mention how exhausted
we are at the end of it all. How many times do we actually meet/call
up friends and come back satisfied after a 5 min chat?
It used to happen more often earlier than now.. no?

Or is it just me in my age-blues?! :-) Donno.

Whatever... I miss the heart-to-heart with a simple soul... the
laughter and fun and the serious talks over ultimate Margarita's :-(
The silver lining numbs the pain a little for now.. Hope to catch up
on good ol' times in the Coffee Houses of Holland soon ;-)

Very nice

खर्च झाल्याचं दुख्ख नसतं, हिशोब लागला नाही की त्रास होतो।

Drive me Krazzy

I know, I know, I am talking too much about the traffic in India.
But as much of a pain that it is driving around here it is as much fun
involved when you look at it objectively.

The funniest event is when the back of a car has a sticker posted onto
it saying "I follow traffic rules, do you?!" is breaking a traffic rule. Its
hilarious to scream at the unsuspecting driver who thinks (s)he is the
one who is on the right side of the road.. er, rule.

The usual drama involving pedestrians crossing the roads has different
variations. There are the brave (read arrogant) ones who just cross
without blinking their eye and expect the traffic to come to a screeching
halt as they go about their normal business. And then there's the meeker
or a little sophisticated variety which stretches out its hand in a stop sign
to the oncoming traffic. Well, it works only sometimes in India. And
then there are the in-betweens - the ones who cannot decide whether
they should cross or stay put. They are the ones who cause most accidents
on the roads :) They should just know that a (wo)man oughta do what a
(wo)man oughta do and should JUST DO IT! Alas, they keep moving back
and forth on the road leaving the driver confused and wondering whether
(s)he should accelerate or should hit the breaks. If you are a good judge
(of people AND of traffic OR are a reckless driver) you will get it right and
there will be no confusion. But if you are not, then the resulting chaos is
hilarious when you look back. Notice it next time.

I am a firm believer that every road in India NEEDS to have a road divider.
Its just too unmanageable otherwise for crossing the street as well as to
drive. But putting up 2 feet high road dividers has not helped either what
with people putting in all their effort to climb it up and get to the other
side and cross the road. Whats funny is that it will take almost the same
effort to go to the nearest road crossing and cross the street. (Well, I am
almost certain its going to be as difficult there as well, but its good for
the traffic to know where to expect people popping up suddenly.
Its kinda expecting the unexpected! ) :)

Apart from people and vehicles the other most common (as per foreigners)
entity to be found on Indian streets is cattle. To be honest I never noticed
cattle on the street until after my first visit abroad years back. :) I swear.
But yes, the 'forener's' are correct here. You will see a single cow/buffalo
or an entire herd ruminating lazily in the middle of a crowded street, totally
oblivious to the deviations the world has to make for them.
There are also street dogs running behind any vehicle they think suspicious
and barking at them with all their energy to prevent them from entering
their territory again. That's the kind of security people on the street have
- totally natural and reliable!

Then there are the modern, educated, hip, sophisticated cattle on the
street - the ones driving whilst talking on their cell phones or the ones
who do not understand what "Yield" means or the ones who care a damn
about splashing rain water on unsuspecting targets walking on the street
or driving a two wheeler or the ones driving throwing all caution to wind
and driving in the mind numbing belief that they own the road - caring
two hoots for the mere mortals. Well, who says education educates a man ?!

This is already a long post but I couldnt end it without talking about the
daily dose of rallies, protests, morchas, VIP visits, road diversions, road
work-in-progress, broken traffic lights, sudden changes in routes or
religious marches? These are the motivations for a young man in India
to become a Formula One driver. Where else could one get so much practice ?!
I think we should have more of these since these are clearly not enough.

Nuff said! Its surprising that despite all this you won't see as many
accidents as you would expect to in day to day transactions. It's
minimal and usually with very less casualty. The other benefit of the
Indian traffic system is that it is a very active form of meditation.
The driver is totally aware of all his senses and has all his concentration
on his driving. (The swearing and stuff is part of the meditation,
kindly do not take it otherwise.) How could I forget the laughs you
get out of revisiting some of the events that happened during your
drive, the live action sequence unfolding right in front of you, the
intense drama, watching the police in action and at the end the
expressions of the unhappy car-owner - are some things money
cannot buy. Priceless!

So go get your daily dose of meditation and get going! Happy journey :-)