Last Time in Delhi, How Many Women you Noticed in a Sari?

Traveling alone, I attracted a small band of followers as soon as I arrived at the station. The first enlistees, two red-smocked, officially badged suitcase wallahs, boarded my train before it stopped moving. Completely unbidden, one grabbed my suitcase, the other my tote. To carry the bags, they balanced them on their turban-wrapped heads like wacky hats.

Sounds familiar? Read on, this essay about travel to New Delhi is from Washington Post Travel Section.

I only had one wish after reading it, that the author would open her eyes wide and notice that in 2005 there are very few women in Delhi who wear sari. Sometimes, when I go to the malls it is ages after I see anyone in Sari. The sari power is now manifested in other guises.

Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary, Bharatpur: An Excellent Weekend Getaway from New Delhi

Taking advantage of the long weekend because of the Republic Day holiday on Thursday in India, we visited Keoladeo National Park, the famous bird sanctuary at Bharatpur. Let me say at the outset that H and I are no bird watchers but we are ready to travel at the drop of a hat or even a pin. And four days are more than enough to go to Bharatpur and come back from New Delhi. The park was also recommended strongly by Lily.

We took Mewar express from Hazrat Nizamudin railway station at 7.50 pm and reached Bharatpur around 11.00 pm. A tempo guy said he would take us to a hotel. Most of the hotles are streatched along half a kilometer area near the bird sanctuary but at 11 in night the gates of the guesthouses were locked and no one answered the call bells. After many failed attempts, we finally managed to wake up the owner of the Falcon Guesthouse (it is highly recommended for budget stay by the excellent guys at the Indiamike.com forum and I agree with them). It was past midnight by now. The owner told us that the rent was Rupees 400. We gladly took the room and crashed.

Next day, we headed straight to the park after having the breakfast. I took photographs of the two boards at the enterance of the Keoladeo National Park, where the details of the timing of the park, guide rates and enterance fee are given. Takes the hassel out of writing about it. The rates become more readable if you click on the photographs to view them at the full size. The enterance fee for Indian nationals is Rupees 25 and for foreign nationals Rupees 200. Anyway, as I said before click on the photographs to see the entire boards more clearly.

We walked up to a barrier after which motorized vehciles are not allowed. At this point we found an area where a boat was parked and H decided we would go on a boat ride. It was an excellent decision. Prior to visiting the Baharatpur park, all my experience of bird watching was on treks where an enthusiast would point at sometihng high up which was hardly visible. But this year in Bharatpur there is ample water and it was a very in your face kind of experience. H and I can appriciate birds only in this way, I guess.

I managed to capture these three painted storks from our boat ride. In the picture below are their babies high up in the tress. They make an enormous amount of noise. There must have been more than a thousand painted storkes in the park, it was easy to photograph them. Though I sincerely wish I had something better than my lousy Nikon Coolpix 3200 with just a 3X optical zoom. Not at all good for wildlife photography.


Looks all grace in flight, isn't it? Don't ask me what it is, if you know the name of this white bird, tell me too (It is a large Egret. I know now because Lily has been kind enough to mention it in the comments). The water reflection is an added bonus. The day was bright and most of the time water reflections were crystal clear. But there is a small problem with many of the photographs I took, I used the digital zoom and on full screen the image looks blurred and grainy. The digital zoom on my Nikon Coolpix seems quite useless for taking wildlife shots and the 3X optical zoom is just not enough.

A meeting of birds in progress here. The black ones are called cormorents.

Again, I do not know what this one is called, but looks mighty nice (Lesser Pied Kingfisher, once again thanks to Lily, I know the names).

We are Taking a walk, care to join?

Here, I can tell you another story. These are two different pythons. To see if the python was sun bathing, our boatman got out of the boat after pulling it across the bank at one point. The water is quite shallow in the wetland, at the most six feet deep and the boatman was using a long bamboo stick to guide the boat. There were five of us in the boat, waiting for his report. Meanwhile, the guide (hired by another group sharing the boat ride with us) tried to get out and managed to push the boat midstream. We all were laughing and wondering how the boatman will get the boat to the shore again? Well, he threw the bamboo to the guide and told him to push it at one side and a little while later at the other, and we were near the bank again, it was that simple. He then told us that a python was sunbathing indeed. That is how I got the first picture.

The second python was sunbathing near the canteen next to the Keoladeo (Shiva) Temple and was surrounded by a host of people. It was even easier to click the second python.

The wetlands are the lifeline of the park. The park is huge and we travelled partly on foot and partly on rented bicycle (the bicycles can be rented at the main gate for Rupees 25 for the entire day). One can hire a rickshaw too, the rickshaw pullers have been trained by WWF and they are expert birdwatchers. All in all, an excellent trip and I am told that the season lasts till February. So if you live in and around Delhi, what are you waiting for?

Call of the Wild

I have uploaded a few photographs of my Har-Ki-Doon trek on webshots and I visit those photographs once in a while. These days my laptop is at HP service centre and I use my nephew's PC.

Aimlessly, I was browsing through some recent photographs and I started doing the same to the Hari-Ki-Doon trek folder. I was so used to remembering the trek through the webshot images that I had completely forgotten how beautiful the other photographs are. And today was such a tiring day that I needed to be remined of something just like this. I thought I will share a few more photographs of this trek on my blog.

Living in an urban ghetto and two/three bedroom drawing/dining kind of a house, sitting here and staring at such open spaces makes me incredibly nostalgic. If rododendrant flowers are part of the landscape, it is an added bonus. Don't you agree?

After I return back from a trek, I remeber each day as it happened, for a long time. Then my Groundhog Days take over and I almost forget how beautiful this world is.

Sunset is never like this at home. I am lucky that I can still see sunset from my back balcony but let us see how long it takes before a high rise comes in and blocks the view.

Would you mind walking for miles to reach such places? This was one of our campsite and I do not mind treading such beautiful paths.

A little rain must fall in each trek and this one was no exception. But the sun came out soon. I guess it always does?

River Tons, and what a noise it makes. Another day, another campsite and intead of traffic noise, you have the sound of the river, the very remedy for frayed nerves.

Our campsite at Har-Ki-Doon. This is the frist glimpse of it as we arrived here from Seema, and after walking for 13 kilometers mostly uphill, the view with the tents included seemed like heaven.

As we were walking back from Har-Ki-Doon to Seema, leaving behind the snow capped mountains and rivers and streams.

Lake Palace, Udaipur used to be his Summer Home

I was attending a one-day conference organized by my institute at The Radisson, Delhi. A speaker was talking about the HRH group of hotels (Historic Resort Hotels). It usually takes me a minute or two to pay real attention to a presentation. I was not in that frame of mind yet.

Suddenly I heard the words, “When my father decided to convert it into a hotel, all the family members were opposed to the idea, including myself. You see The Lake Palace, Udaipur used to be our summer home.”

Forget about getting attentive, I nearly fell off my chair after hearing this. It has never crossed my mind that the Lake Palace could be someone’s summer home! The speaker was the Maharaja Arvind Singh of Mewar.

After listening to his talk, I was wondering if they monitor what is written about them on the net? I had this vague idea about reading something about bird droppings and ants in a balcony of the Lake Palace Hotel room! But how do you tell this to a Maharaja?

During the lunch, I dared to approach him and said, “Can I ask you a question?” Standard procedure of breaking ice during a conference with a speaker, only I had never done it with some who has Maharaja attached to his name (though he uses the title of Mewar and not Maharaja). He was gracious enough and said yes. So I tried to keep a neutral territory and inquired if they monitor the web and keep a tab of what their customers say about their stay at the various properties owned by them? He replied that they have a website and I could find a lot of information there! I tried again, and said these days many people search the net before planning a trip and many people write about their experiences at various places, a lot of information can come up in these searches. While I was trying to explain this to him in some detail with examples, he suddenly said, “I cannot eat standing, why don’t we go inside the conference hall and continue this talk there?”

So a few minutes later, the Maharaja with a small portion of boiled food on his plate and me with a soup, occupied a table. There were two other people with us and I think they worked with him.

We did a bit of small talk, where I told him I am a hard core budget traveler and though I have been to Udaipur, I do not even dream of staying in the Lake Palace. He added that all kind of travelers have a place in Udaipur and even the hippies are good for the economy. I was wondering if he kept me in that category! Because if he did, it is funny even to try and imagine myself as a hippie! But I did not press the point.

Gradually, I mentioned having read about ants (could not bring the bird dropping part) in the hotel room and the need in today’s world to keep a tab about what is written about a company on the web in general. He became thoughtful and then added; “Maybe my managers block some feedback.” He added to the lady in his group, “We probably need to open a web based feedback from our customers but the problem is if we get to know about it after they have left, we cannot do anything about it.” Then he turned to me and said, “Why don’t you send the links to me that you are talking about and send it directly to me.” I added in a low voice, "In that case, I need your email address." He took out his card and wrote his email and phone number on it. His card has three lines:

Arvind Singh Mewar

The Palace

Udaipur.

Soon our head of school for the Bengal campus joined the group and we chitchatted about tourism in general. Then I took their leave to grab some food before another session of the conference started.

PS. I have sent the links to him but I wonder if I will ever get a reply?

On Indian Roads Give me Cows Anyday!

Now, before you start hurling abuses at me for painting a clichéd picture of India, because of this cow talk, have a glass of water or a mug of chai (tea). And then decide for yourself.

Yesterday was a bad day. I had to teach a class. And after that when all I wanted was to do some light blog reading, Suyog sprang up such a confusing post in the name of some god forsaken movie Kabhi Alvida Na Kahna (can it be translated as ‘Do not say goodbye ever?’)

In the evening, I started driving home and everyone who could cut me off, honk at me, or flash that irritating light to declare that ‘I should move aside or else they would drive through me,’ flashed it.

The area I drive through to reach my college has a lot of factories. Hence, it is overflowing with pedestrians and cyclists (Ps&Cs). I do not blame them; they have to use the same road to reach to work, as there is no separate pathway for them. They are, in fact, forced to spill over.

But I do take an exception when they materialize out of thin air with hurtling speed, only to drop all the pretence and embark on a casual stroll past my car. All the cars anyway drive in the second gear because cyclists, motorcyclists, cars, tractors, buses, trucks, all via of space on a road that till recently had this uncanny resemblance to the surface of the moon.

My worst experience has been when two not so gentlemen decided to take a stroll in front of my car. I crawled behind them for a while, without honking and when they still showed no sign of moving, I casually leaned on the horn. You are probably familiar with the noise that results from casually leaning on the horn. But the not so gentlemen seemed to be stone deaf.

Now here was I, leaning casually on my horn and trying to drive at a speed to suit the guys crawling in front of me. There was no space to move a car anywhere else on the surface of moon. A fraction of second later, the front tires of my car made a slight contact with one of the guys.

I found myself suddenly leaning on the breaks too. The guy glared at me. I pointed out the ample space available on the left hand side of the road, away from any cars and the fact that I had been honking since an hour! The gentleman finally moved aside along with his friend and probably saw the logic of not walking in front of a car. He was not hurt and nobody picked up a fight with me.

But when I reached office and had time to reflect, I was so unhappy, constructing various scenarios where the injury could have been more serious to the guy that by the evening, I was depressed and had a splitting headache. Thankfully, they have re-constructed that road and this turned out to be a one off incident. I still meet Ps&Cs in regular force everyday, but there are a few inches more to maneuver. Still, I am totally ashamed of the way things turned out that day and my part in it.

I do not have any major grudges against the motorcyclists apart from their habit of overtaking me from the wrong side. That and trying to give me heart attacks. The smallest bit of spaces between a bus and a SUV is an invitation to them to try and squeeze past. My heart has developed this uncomfortable tendency of doing small little flips in tandem with their maneuvers.

Cars, in this area drive in the second gear and I think we have a friendly feeling toward each other. But come evening when the roads are just a little bit more empty, everyone is so fond of pulling the lights to indicate ‘move aside or I will drive through you.

A special category of vehicles is the call centre cabs (buses and trucks behave similarly) and I always make way for them, no problem. I know they are in a hurry. Still, they have a penchant to keep coming straight for me. Now I am faced with a choice to move an inch on the other side and knock off a few Ps&Cs (who seem to be completely oblivious of everything around) or continue as before and get hit by the cab or the bus or the truck.

My usual response is to freeze completely. Later, when I open my eyes it seems somehow, at the last moment, that cab or bus or truck had swing away from me. And the cyclists and pedestrians are still on their legs and cycles, in the same state- oblivion.

Now compare this with cows! They are so well behaved. They do not materialize out of thin air. They are big and they make themselves seen clearly. They are in no hurry to cross that road. They amble past royally, giving you enough time to react.

They are solidly built. At low speeds, if any contact is made, it is my car that is going to get damaged. On the other hand, the mere whisper of a contact with those Ps&Cs leaves me shivering and cold and ill.

The cow does no heart-attack inducing maneuvers. The cow may block my way, but it does not ‘keep coming at me’ at high speeds to turn away at the last moment. Car horn produces a better effect on Cows than the Ps&Cs walking in front of my car. I also like the way cows divide the responsibility of avoiding a contact 50-50. With Ps&Cs, it seems to be solely my responsibility, 200%.

So, why not? Give me cows any day, they are much better behaved and have better sense of self-preservation and avoiding accidents than some other creatures, I meet on the road.

How Far a 100 Rupee Note Will Go?

I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law at Noida. A small side agenda was to do some shopping too.

I have to buy a business suit for a forthcoming conference. So the idea was simple and this hoarding seems to capture it well, I was looking for some feel good clothes!
But the problem with me is, I do not feel good so easily. I thought the cycle parked in front was a perfect contradiction to the message of the hoarding. I was wondering if the cycle owner was a guard at one of those shops, who work 12 hour shifts? I was wondering if he was 'feeling good' or not?

I get drawn to the sidewalks and the signs of life there much more than the swank shops and the malls. I was really drawn to these sellers selling the colorful firkis and they posed for me quite willingly. I do not know how much they make in a day. Is it enough to keep them going? What kind of dreams they have?


A little ahead, and still in my quest for feel good clothes I met a few small and smiling girls. They were selling flowers and I simply love flowers. The flowers were not so fresh but I felt drawn to the kids. I asked them how much for one bunch? The girl in the left hand corner of the picture below told me that one bunch was for 10 rupees. I bought one and this prompted the others to try and do some hard selling, which was quickly turning simply into pleas for money.

I think reading this post by Krish made me respond the way I did, I said, I would buy some food for them but I will not give money. The kids readily agreed.

We started with these three and I was wondering where they would take me and calculating how much it would cost? I am so used to paying Rupees 150 for a single dish of rice or more than Rupees 100 for two plates of Momos or more than Rupees 1000 for a few pizzas. I tried chatting up with them but they were not too interested. One girl said she was from a small town in UP. I asked why she left home? She mumbled something about not having a home but all the kids that were hanging around were living together. I wonder where they live? I wonder if they are safe on the streets? I only know they smiled quickly while talking with me.

The kids took me to a road side stall selling chole-kulche (vegetables with a kind of India bread). On the way our number increased to four. By the time the person started giving out the food to the kids the number went up to nine. When it came to paying for it, my bill came to a total of Rupees 90!

It was a stunning realization that a measly 90 rupees that in many cases cannot buy two plates of Momos can buy lunch for 9 people. For the first time I felt that the measly salary that I draw can go quite a long way, if I really have a will to do something. The kids took there food away and I once again thought of the task at hand- to buy a business suit.

I started walking off and a small girl approached me and pleaded to buy a flower. I said, I would buy food for her. She told me I already had. Then she pleaded to give her just one rupee. When I asked why, her answer was simple. She wanted to eat a toffee! I said I would buy the toffee. As we were walking, I saw an ice cream vendor and suggested an ice cream to her. She took the biggest cone she could spot in the picture.

This is not the stall where I bought food for the kids, but I have developed a new respect for the street food.

I went to the mall and looked for a business suit. It was priced at Rupees 4000. That can buy a meal for 400 people at the stall where the kids took me!

I tried a few but if the jacket fitted me, the trousers were small and if the trousers fitted me, the jacket was too big. I seem to have developed an uncomfortable tendency not to fall in any pre-tailored categories. I had to walk out after 45 minutes without buying one.

And in the process I have realized that in some places 100 rupees can mean a lunch for 10 people and not the price of a small shampoo bottle or two plates of Momos.

The Food that Keeps Me Walking

trOn my visit to Bharmour, we logged 12 kilometers everyday on foot for three days, one after another! On the first and the third day we could easily have taken a jeep to and from Hadsar, but when H is around such things rarely happen. I protest initially but in the end, the photo opportunities are just too good to ignore while walking. The waterfall or ice block on the road becomes a blur from the jeep, whereas I can stop as often as I want when we are walking. So, I always agree to get tortured one more time, after putting in a token protest initially.

I think I can still walk 12 kilometers because once upon a time, I used to run a lot. I could run for 10 kilometers at a stretch but that is real ancient history now. The second thing that makes me walk is the thought of food, that I can eat without any guilt if I walk something like 12 kilometers.
Looks yummy? A steaming pot of Maggie noodles is just the kind of food I like to gobble at the end of a long day's walk. I like it anyway but I am teased mercilessly by my two nephews, H and even my dad joins in and calls me 'head junkie' of the home, all for savoring some Maggie :( Whenever I have a bad day, there is nothing like a hot plate of Maggie made by my elder nephew (B1 = Brat 1) to cheer me up. I think he cooks the best Maggie in the world. But after a long day's walk I am forgiven for eating it. H feels I have earned it. That, or he knows one wrong word and I would refuse to budge even an inch on the next day, forget 12 kilometers.

Dhaba Tea Anyone?

Maggie is something that I like a lot but I like tea even more. There was a time and I am not joking, I must have been gulping at least 20 cups a day, now I am down to 4 or 5. I do not like the nes-tea (ever occured to you it ryhmes with nasty?) that they serve in my office. I like the hot cup I get at my home and it is B2 (Brat 2 = Younger Nephew) who makes it so well. But nothing can beat the dabha tea. As soon as I see one, I refuse to move ahead without having a cup and H again behaves like an angel (he is not so fond of tea) cause he knows he has to make me walk again the next day, so better to keep me in good humor.


The next best thing in this world is jalebi but I did not get a very good picture of it here, for the uninitiated it is the left most iteam in the picture above. There was a time when I could gulp one packet of cake daily and remain feather weight because I would spend 2 to 3 hours on a badminton court or a basketball court. Gone are those days now. All I get to play is some TT, and though I enjoy it thoroughly, but I cannot gulp sweets like I used to. Still, I seem to gain weight everyday! After walking 12 kilometers I can afford to have a few sweets without feeling guilty.

This is Mr. Sharma of Sharma Dabha near the bus stand, Bharmour. He makes the most wonderful parathas (stuffed Indian bread) and tea in Bharmour. He puts a few clove flakes in the tea and it tastes heavenly. We got chatting with him and he told us that he worked for IB (Intelligence Bureau) for 21 years before taking voluntary retirement and coming back to his village. If you ever head to Bharmour do not miss his tea or parathas.

Holy Cow? No, Bloody Hell!

I saw the cover at the Daryaganj Sunday Book Market and I was sold over, more so every book at that particular shop was for Rs. 20. That is how I ended up with ‘Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure’ by Sarah Macdonald. Apparently, Ms. Macdonald had visited India in her twenties and had a horrible experience.

So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India- and for love- she screamed “Never!” and gave him, the finger. … But eleven years later the prophecy comes true.

And therein lies a boring story. Five reasons why I didn’t like it.

5. The Ending is Predictable: In spite of the tone set by the author from the first few pages of the book you can see the ending from a mile and I am not convinced why it had to be that way. And the book has every formula that one can have in writing a book about India.

4. The Great Village of Delhi: I quite agree that Delhi is polluted, it has the people with worst driving sense in the world, living here could be nerve wrecking experience on the account of the harsh summer alone. But how can you convince me that Vasant Kunj was a village in 2000? That the author never found a McDonald’s or Wimpy or TGIF in 2000 but she saw more elephants and snake charmers in her stay of a few years than I have seen in my entire lifetime in India.

3. Bollywood Anyone: Ms. Macdonald has a brush with quite a few stars of Bollywood. Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan definitely make an appearance in this book. Yaaaaaawn. Another formula?

2. Cribbing, cribbing and cribbing: I know traveling in India is not easy and people do not have the same idea about personal space and the infrastructure sucks. But, if even one single sight of this country fails to move you and you cannot pen in two lines positive about it till we get to the last 10 pages, I get bored. I guess Ms. Macdonald should have gone to Disneyland after all, as she kept mentioning. It sounds more like her kind of place. She cannot see anything but red ass mangy monkeys everywhere. It seems we Indians drugged her and dragged her out of Austraila, instead of she coming out of her own sweet free will.

1. Religion, Religion and More Religion: More than half the book is about Ms. Macdonald’s brush with one religion or the other, while her boyfriend roams the sub-continent on various assignments for Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She is reluctant about religion initially, calls herself atheist and ends up at Kumb Mela. Then, she complaints that she found the place full of devotes and religious activities. What else will one find there? If you do not want religion, stay away from Kumbh like me! It is like saying I went to the Mall and found so many designer labels there! Later, this self proclaimed atheist embarks on a tedious (to the reader) journey of discovering the various religions like, Hinduism, Islam, Sufis, Parsis, Buddhism etc etc etc. Pick this one up at your own risk, don’t tell me later that I didn’t warn you.

Good for Each-Good for All?

I have met and seen so many straw men and non-sequiturs and broken some things (windows or logics?) in the discussions with the Indian Libertarians that I thought it is about time to give them one back.

They are very fond of pointing out; when their individual liberty is in danger and most of the time, I have no problems with it. After all, so many times I have written, it is my blog, my freedom what I want to write here.

Till I saw this at Desipundit:

“I fully support female foeticide (or any other foeticide) on the grounds of individual liberty.”

My answer is, if you are such a great champion of ‘individual’ liberty, why, go and live in a cave, individually. You affect no one and no one affects you.

However, if you have the need to live in a society and you do not want to live in a cave, then please remember, what is good for one individual may not be good for all, as a society.

Beauty and the Beast

H likes just one kind of holidays, going to the mountains and walking there a lot. On our recent trip to Hadsar, we walked 12 kilometers evey day, for three days.

I try to protest initially. I crib that I want a resort kind of a holiday once in a while but in the end I almost always find myself on the train/bus with him. I have to, because he has shown a slight tendency to take the train/bus without me. Last year, when I was still employed in one of my jobs from hell, I fell ill just before a vacation and H took the train/bus alone! All I can say is, he has paid for it many times over. I will not say more because H has a tendency to check my blog occasionally.

So, this time when we took the train first and then various buses, soon we found ourselves looking at a different kind of a high-rise. Lovely, is it not? But you see, I am showing you only a partial picture. Want to see the complete one? Brace yourself and scroll below.

This is how the approach to the Pathankot station looks like. When I clicked my camera, H almost fell off the train. He saked, "Why on earth are you taking this picture?" I told him that because in my own lazy way, I care just a little bit about this earth.

We later walked half way through the Mani Mahesh pilgrimage route that starts at Hadsar. It is a 13 kilometer uphill walking route (one can take a pony too) and we walked 6 km up and 6 km down on the same day. Some of the most beautiful pictures were taken on this route. Those of you who have seen my previous post of this trip and admired the frozen waterfall, it was on the Mani mahesh route. Below is another pleasing view.

And this is not such a pleasing one after all. The pilgrims and others have littered all along the way with abandon- ##@&#%#@#.

And this one is a scene from Bharmour. Lift your head up and you see lofty peaks and snow somewhere high up and look down and you see this. @#$%%**@## is all I can say.

I had a discussion about the same on the India Mike forum. I said, H and I would take a spare bag (as big as we can manage) and then bring back some of the plastic from the routes we visit in the future. But I am stuck with what to do with it after that? Throw it in the heap above at Bharmour? Even if I bring it all the way to Delhi, what do we do? What happens to the Bharmour heap? I have no answers.

An interesting link was offered at India Mike in this debate.

Why do we Indians have this urge to throw plastic (litter) just about anywhere?

My gadgets have declared a war on me!

And it is affecting my blog life. As soon as I flip open my mobile phone (a model that is out of production now but I will change it only when it completely conks out) and start writing a SMS to S (a vicarious blogger, wants to know of the blogland but does not blog or reads them these days) the mobile switches off and then comes on again (out of its own free will, I do nothing apart from staring hard at it) wiping out completely the juicy tidbit I was writing to her. After 19^th attempt I wonder if the story is really worth anything at all and why am I even bothered.

But I do not grudge my mobile so much; I must have dropped it hard on the ground at least 15 times because I would be holding so many things. A few books, my TT bat, a handbag and a water bottle and my mobile and my car keys (not knowing what is where) while trying to open my car door. Sometimes, I drop the books or the water bottle too but never my TT bat. It is a great wonder to me that my mobile is still working at all.

Then there is my laptop. It did the unimaginable, it wiped all my 400 plus photographs from Ladakh while we (and H has been working in the software industry for the past 9 years) did not take a backup. All I can say is that it gives us a good reason for going back to Ladakh someday. Since then, it has crashed at least three times more. But I did not loose a single photograph after that. You see, I rarely make the same mistake twice. These days, the laptop attempts to crash only when I try to view the photographs from my recent trip to Bharmour and Hadsar. Mysteriously, it flashes a message about ‘dumping memory’ (whatever that may mean) and then it shuts off after producing a lot of garbage (to me) messages. It starts later and if I do not try to watch the photographs, it is content by merely producing noises similar to some trying to kick start a scooter when the spark plug has gone bad.

When my laptop is away for repair, I am forced to use my two bratty nephew’s PC. It lets me watch the photos from any of my trips, I guess it is more tolerant because every icon button on it has a Kurt Cobain theme and it has achieved ‘Nirvana.’

Only, if I do not take my mobile out of the internet cord before switching off the PC, it goes mad. Next time when I try to switch it on, the monitor gets divided into neat squares of equal size and then my elder nephew takes over. He removes the cover off the CPU. He then takes off a small cell and fits it back again, and hey presto, the PC forgives me for not taking off the mobile first.

The problem is his CPU cover and various other parts of his computer (but not the key board and the mouse) give random electric shocks to others who trying to handle it. H has once sent the digital camera flying while trying to connect it to the PC. My elder nephew can never find a tester (or the Pizza membership card when we want to order one) and threatens to use my younger nephew as a tester. My younger nephew needs no rescuing these days (and I am so thankful for this small mercy, I never thought the day will ever come) he can tackle his elder brother quite well. All he has to do is to start reciting how many times David Beckham has sent the penalty-kick flying in various matches with all its gory details (this he remembers much better than anything he mugs up for class tests) and my elder nephew quickly establishes truce.

Meanwhile, after working at their comp I have discovered that if a mouse refuses to move where you try to hit the back button there are more chances of succes if you try to hit the address bar and retype the URL again. And the sound produced by banging the mouse on the table can bring my dad down from his room, thinking my nephews are trying some WWE moves.

And all this makes blogging a different exercise altogether.

Where is Travel, I am Reminded for a Second Time!

It happened for the second time! The Backpacker said it this time "Just checked your blogs. Nice. Though I would love to see some more articles on travelling!!"

The first time it was Arun.

Both have excellent travel blogs. And about time too that I started writing more about my first love, travel. Of course I cannot stay away from certain topics but it always jolts me when someone says where is 'travel' in Travel Tales from India.

Attendence or Not?

I got to know about this from Anirudh. His friend Vinod is not happy at all about his grades that he got after scoring maximum marks in his class in a particular subject at IIT Kanpur (Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur). He got a D.

Okay, cribbing time. For the first time during my stay at IITK, I have become the victim of the tyranny of professors. There is one particular course – Environmental Engineering – in which I scored a “batch max” i.e. maximum marks in the class – in the end semester examination and was awarded a D grade. Why? Because I did not attend his (...) classes.

I wonder, I know of many places where attendence is a criteria for how much you can score. For example IIMB and IIML both have attendence norms to my knowledge. Last known to me, IITK didn't. I guess the rule of the games should be clear from the beginning whether there is going to be an attendence norm or not, and not made up at the end of the semester.

PS. Vinod says the rule of the games were clear from the beginning but he is not happy with the attendence rules. I wonder what happens in other countries. Do undergrad students have to fulfil attendence requirements?

My Best Wishes to Indian Science Congrees for 2007

I should congratulate the Indian Science Congress for the choice of their venue for 2007 event.

They will learn a lot from their hosts. First and foremost they can learn how to mark a student absent in an exam when he was present and drive him to suicide! You think I am making this up? Do you think The Hindu is making it up:

NEW DELHI: Apparently depressed at being marked absent in an examination in which he had appeared and scored good marks, a 21-year-old student of Amity School of Technology and Management in Gurgaon allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in his house at Farsh Bazar in East Delhi on Thursday.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/10/07/stories/2005100721270300.htm

They can learn how to loose their AICTE affiliation for their MBA programs:

The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has decided to withdraw approval for conduct of PGDM (full time) and PGDM (part time) courses to Amity Business School Noida, from the academic year 2005-06. Consequent upon withdrawal of AICTE approval, the Council decided to transfer and distribute the students already admitted in the Amity Business School, among other approved institutions in the nearby locality.

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=12056

Then the delegates of the Indian National Congress can learn how not to refund the fees to those students who wanted to leave after AICTE's decision:

A case against Amity Business School was filed in the District Consumer Redressal Forum New Delhi, Mehrauli, New Delhi which hears matters between Rs 1-5 lakhs on 29th November, 2005. The complaint states: "That the applicant/ cancellation has no fault in the withdrawal of approval by AICTE to the respondent no 1"

"That the applicant/ complainant suffered the loss of a year of his career and valuable time, as well as mental and physical harassment by the respondents."In addition to refund of fees advocate Naveen Kumar is seeking compensation of Rs 100,000 for loss of a year, financial, educational, mental and physical harassment by the respondents (Amity Business School).

The six former Amity students listed as complainants are: Deepak Soni, Jitesh Marwaha, Amit Bharadwaj, Anshul Pant, Diptanshu Gupta, and Deepak Bansal. A summons was issued to Amity Business School, Ashok Chauhan and Sunita Singh (Director, Admissions, ABS). Amity has not yet responded but a date of January 6 2006 has been set for the next court hearing.

Former student Jitesh Marwaha adds, "A number of students in PGDM have not submitted their next installment of fees as they wish to know what is the current status and validity of the course after withdrawal of AICTE approval." And the wait continues.

http://www.jammag.com/careers/articles/mbacorner/caramity/index2.php?id=1

And last but not the least, the delegates from Indian National Congress can learn how to get an intepol arrest warrant in their names:

Q. 5308 Red Alert Notice by Interpol

12/05/2005

RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 5308 TO BE ANSWERED ON 12-5-2005 5308 SHRI R.K. ANAND: Will the Minister of EXTERNAL AFFAIRS be pleased to state: (a) whether it is a fact that Red Alert Notice by Interpol and International Warrants have been issued by German authorities against Indians for alleged fraud committed by Indians in Germany; (b) whether Government has received any request/warrants from German Authorities for extradition of many businessmen in India; and (c) what steps are being taken by Government to execute such warrants? ANSWER THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS (SHRI E. AHAMED) (a) Yes, Sir, valid warrants of arrest issued by German Judicial authorities against S/Shri Ashok Kumar Chauhan and Arun Kumar Chauhan, Directors of AMITY International, Ghaziabad, U.P. exist and the Interpol has issued Red-Corner-Notice Nos. 453/1990 and 459/1998 respectively at the request of Interpol Wiesbaden. http://meaindia.nic.in/parliament/rs/2005/05/12rs07.htm

Could they have come up a better choice for their next meet, given the qualifications of thier hosts? May the Indian Science Congress learn more and choose more such excellent venues for propogating science.

And I guess they will because we do not care enough about the issue even to protest from our blogs en masse. If you write about this issue on your blog, I request you to please leave a link in my comment section, so that all the links can be viewed at one place.

Do Not Try to Drive me Away from Desipundit Vulturo

Heck, I am upset. Look at this post at Desipundit. I was the first person to leave a comment there. Like a fool I did not back up my comment, even though my brother-in-law asked me to take a back-up and link it to my blog. I thought there was no need to do so. After me Anirudh left a comment and both are gone now. I am reproducing my comment from memory and no, it had no curse words, I do not use curse words in the public domain.

I wrote “This is biased moderation and the moderator is letting his views on the subject affect it. … Since when did DP start linking to people’s comments at other posts?”

This is all I can recall in good faith. I wrote one more line but I cannot recall what. I hope Anirudh too will let us know what he wrote. Anyway, you can still see how Sibyl reacted to the removal of the comments.

Sibyl said,

January 1, 2006 at 5:30 am

Well, Shivam, it was very funny.

On a different issue, just surprised to see that the two comments posted before mine have been deleted. Curious, considering they weren’t rude or anything, they just suggested that the tone of the post was a bit biased. Oh, well…

Now Vulturo (the moderator of the post) tells Anirudh and me:

The comments were deleted as they were found to be in a bad taste, and against the spirit of DesiPundit. Thank you.

I have been called belligerent before for my comments but I have never accused of bad taste or being against the spirit of Desipundit.

You see I like the site so much and believed it is doing good work that I answered their called for donation (though the amount I contributed is very small when converted in dollars and anyway at that point of time I wanted to contribute).

Do not take that belief away from me over a debate Vulturo. I do call your moderation biased. Is that in bad taste and against the spirit of desipundit? Are you Desipundit?

At this point of time I am very evenly poised and do not know where I go from here as far as Desipundit is concerned.

PS. I giving this as a hat tip to Desipundit, let me see if I get a response. And I have definitely backed up the comments now available at Desipundit.

PPS. Anirudh writes about the same here.

Outspoken? Do not use MSN Spaces for Blogging

From Boingboing:

Microsoft’s MSN Spaces continues to censor its Chinese language blogs, and has become more aggressive and thorough at censorship since I first checked out MSN’s censorship system last summer. On New Years Eve, MSN Spaces took down the popular blog written by Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti. Now all you get when you attempt to visit his blog [Link] is the error message pictured above. (You can see the Google cache of his blog up until Dec.22nd here.)
...
Note, his blog was TAKEN DOWN by MSN people. Not blocked by the Chinese government.

I wonder what my Classical Liberal friends from Indian blogs have to say about this one!

Can you Imagine?

Can you imagine a loved one being trapped in a mine down at 13,000 feet? Can you imagine being told that 12 out of 13 people trapped have survived? And then, can you imagine being told a few hours later that actually 1 out of 13 survived? My mind blanks out at such a scenario. And yet this is what happened today to people. It is not very clear why it happened, but the grief caused to the families of the miners in the US must have increased many folds. May it never happen to anyone else again.

I was browising through BBC when I saw the news that 12 people survived. The picture used in the updated story even now is the same, relatives reacting with relief and joy.

Then after a few minutes I moved toThe Washington Post and found a different story, saying that 12 people died. Moving back to BBC I found the story has changed there too. The company officials say something about news being picked up and quickly relayed through mobile phones. Such a sad thing to happen.

More from The Washington Post

So ended a drama that began early Monday morning with news of a possible explosion and of 13 trapped coal miners, followed by a methodical rescue mission with workers drilling and tunnelling more than two miles into the mine, followed by good news, followed by tragic news, now preserved only in newspaper headlines that could not be changed Wednesday morning.

What happened, said Ben Hatfield, the CEO of International Coal Group, was this: Late Tuesday night, rescuers deep in the mine communicated to the command post that they had found 12 individuals. Everyone in the command post, listening together on a loud speaker phone, thought they heard that the word "alive" or at least got the impression they were alive.

The news was relayed quickly to the Governor of West Virginia and others, who flashed it to the families and then the press. Church bells rang. There were high-fives and thumbs up and whoops of joy. All the families--except that of one miner--celebrated and thanked the Lord.

Hatfield said that 20 minutes later, another communication came from the rescuers. Twelve were dead, they said. One was alive.

For unexplained reasons, it took several hours to tell the families that the good news was all a big mistake, a huge mistake.

When they heard, they erupted, according to Hatfield and family members interviewed. Cheers turned to tears and rage. Then, family by family, they began emerging arm-in-arm from the church that had served as their refuge. Some were doubled-up with grief. Others just wept. Others were stone-faced and silent.

Some families told reporters. Hatfield held a news conference to confirm, with visible emotion, the tragic news.

Travelling to Bhamour, Hadsar and Half Way to Mani Mahesh in Himanchal Pradesh, India

We took a train from old Delhi railway station to Pathankot Decebmer 23, 2005. We reached Pathankot the next day 4 hours after the scheduled time. We stuffed Aloo-Parathas (Indian Stuffed Bread) in a hotel next to the bus stand and then took a bus to Chamba. We stayed in Chamba at the night. Next day we started for Bharmour. From Chamba, Bharmour is a 3-3.5 hour ride and for part of the way, we had these goats as co-passengers in the bus.

Goats in the Bus

Bharmour is a sleepy village and quite cold in winter. When we got down from the bus, no one approached us and this lack of touts bewildered us completely. We took a road in search of a hotel and we arrived at a temple complex called Chaurasi Complex. A group of people guided us to a hotel (Rajdhani Hotel) that was locked. We dumped our luggage in a small room adjacent to a Dhaba (small food shop) and went to have tea. There at the tea shop we met the owner of Rajdhani Hotel by accident and he took us back and we were the only guests in the entire hotel.

Chaurasi Temple Complex

Next day, we decided to walk for 12 kilometers and visit the next village Hadsar. Jeeps are available on this route but we still decided to walk as it provides better photo opportunities. The owner of the Rajdhani Hotel asked us to leave the excess baggage in the room and the keys to the room on a ledge! And he recommended another guesthouse in Hadsar. One of the first photographs I took was of this road side temple and prayer flags.

Prayer Flags

The way was a proper jeep road but with very little traffic. I had ample opportunity to use my camera. This tree on the edge also caught my attention.

On the Edge?

Being December, it was freezing cold and I have proof below. But walking kept the cold at bay and the smell of pine all around kept the mood pleasent.

Ice and Grass

Next to catch my attention was this trick of sunlight. If you travel by a jeep or a bus, it is very difficult to catch such moments.

Trick of Light

After walking for 10 kilometers I started feeling tired and was dragging by feet for the last two kilometers. The sight of Shanti Gueshouse at Hadsar was a welcome one. After having tea and a late lunch we started exploring the village and soon enough we landed near this stream.

Looking through the Water

Next day, we planned to climb up for 6 kilometers on the way to the pilgrimage route of Mani Mahesh. . People at the Shanti Guest House told us that after 6 kilometers, we would reach a village Dhanchow and beyond that the route would be lost in the snow. The weather was bad the next day and it looked as if it would snow. Still, we decided to go ahead. The trail is well marked so we were on our own. As we gradually gained height, more snow-capped peaks were visible.

His Majesty: The Mountain

After five kilomerets, we reached a waterfall and parts of it had frozen solid. I had half a mind to return from here but there were many rocks free of snow and ice and we could push further. We finally went all the way to Dhanchow. The weather turned bad there and it started snowing lightly. We decided to run back quickly. The snow stopped falling after a while and the day cleared somewhat. We reached back safely and in good time.

Frozen Waterfall

I debated with H if we should walk back or take a jeep to Bharmour the next day. We finally decided to walk back 12 kilometers again.

On our way back to Pathankot, our bus made an unscheduled stop and this was the view outside. And some other photographs of this trip are here.