care and love

Let me be clear that the name has nothing to do with any beauty care or personal care - its an orphanage and aptly named.

There are about 35 children from the age group of 3- 13 girls and boys.

The word orphan and orphanage is heart rendering and one will probably go with a different bend of mind - lot of sympathy but when you face such children - the smile in their face and the confidence will make you feel puny in front of them. You will forget all your woes and struggle which till now has been the 'worst in the world'.

How does a child survive physically or mentally without parents - a great mystery......how do they come to terms with the concept that they are alone in this world and still have the spirit and strength to smile.

My conclusion - they must be super humans - they must have reached the higest form of mental and physical strength which people wont even dream of - kudos to such children who stay and grow up in an orphanage considering their fellow orphans as their family - sharing their woes and happiness with their adopted family and surrounding and living happily ever after.

My deep regards for such children and a lot to learn in true sense.

Country of Liberty

In my trip to US, I covered mid parts which are Minneapolis and Texas and New Orleans; Eastern part of Boston and New York. Although it was over month long trip, I wont take the liberty of commenting much on US culture since that requires furthur observation. Few snippets is all I can offer.
Minneapolis and Rochester - kind of dry place - not much to see although I tried catching up with their much publicised Contemporary Art museum which to my eyes looked ridiculous with wall length canvas with a black stroke in-between (my due apologies to all modern painters). It is supposed to be one of the coldest parts of US so people are not very fast paced or lively. They have sky walks all through to avoid the harsh climate and like the climate - people were bit stony and cold.
Boston - the tea party - did buy some tea with the same tag! Its a historical city with British Architecture and the famous harbour where American Revolution budded. The quincy market reminded me of Calcutta New Market which has its old flavour harmonised neatly with the new generation of marketers. There were street performers with their jiggs and music. Interestingly, contrary to our city setup - US marks the downtown as the city which is mostly the hub of commerce and activity while people live in and around the main downtown. To get the flavour of culture - one has to visit the downtown. MA being the seat of education with MIT, Stanford - the student culture is more vibrant. A old city with young crowd thronging the streets to shop or visit museums or just hang around Quincy Market.
New York - needs a special mention. Vibrant, positive, multi-cultural and lingual - I felt quite at home. Street are mostly unkempt, people have a maddening pace and its true that the 'city never sleeps'. I can strongly conclude that atleast in the Eastern parts and New Orleans - people are mostly on the street - enjoying live performances, hanging around, eating cuisines like Euthopian one(I tasted myself) more so in the evenings and weekends.
Houston - got the flavour of BIG. Everything was enourmous - from the quantity you order to malls to even people flashing their ornaments and dresses.
New Orleans - party city - Bouboun street where people hang around drunk for days together. The seat of Mardi Gras - the extremely friendly French Quarters. A city undaunted by the havoc and destruction of Katrina.
Interestingly, contrary to popular belief - Americans are not shameless in their dress sense(we believe they are mostly half naked) or showing their emotion publicly and its definitely not true that one can do anything on American Streets. They are pretty conservative and the recent trend is more to be family oriented. They love eating out, travelling and ofcourse shopping. Consumerism is high and responsible and one can easily get lost in the variety although all makes are Chinese!!! Wastage is high - food, water, gas, paper - all comes in such huge quantity that its bound to get wasted. Cities are not that clean as one would love to believe, beggars are plenty - infact, one data says there are about 19000 homeless in LA itself. Crime is very high - they have channels dedicated to crime reporting but one thing is for sure - corruption doesnot affect the basics like education, health system, food which I guess makes living much easier.
People are generally happy go-lucky, friendly(not like Europeans) and inquisitive. I feel their past makes them much more open to different cultures, races, religion - I would say every American has little of every kind of flavour across the world although they are very protective about their individuality too. The race for money keeps up the positive pace but also makes them loose themselves easily to drugs and crime. I found a growing influence of hinduism amongst them in the form of yoga, meditation which although for some are fads.
Capitalism, liberty and freedom makes the Americans grow in their mind and also creates bad sheep - a tough balance to strike.
Last but not the least:
Population of China is under control!!
Obviously - more than 70% reside now in US!!!!

Vote Do...Vote Do

Vote Do....Vote Do!!
A good campaign for literates to arise and awake to be part of a change in the whole election process in this country.

All these years our motherland has seen sleeping literates who though participate in fiery discussions on economy, politics but when it comes to action even to the extent of voting - they shudder giving lame excuses like what's the use? whom to vote - all are same!! The process is complicated to get registered!!

But surprisingly, I strongly feel this country is still functioning despite high level of corruption and an illegal parallel system only for few people may it be politicians or goverment people who still has some element of morality and truthfulness embedded in them. So if we ignore the mass so called 'netas' who just mud sling at each other, beg shamelessly for votes only prior to elections, resorts to money laundering and cheap ways to capture the golden eggs(votes in this scenario); we still can spot few who for whatever reason it might be have done some good at the end of the day - may it be the Railways, or Foreign Ministry or even uplifting education and electric facilities in villages.

Interestingly, despite the poor being still poor and our ''netas' even after 60 years still promising the basics of Roti - Kappda - Makan which should have been done long back, people even in remote villages today has developed a sense of practicality and deeply observe how their voted netas have performed in the last phase and are no more influenced by gifts or threatens, to vote the most eligible candidate. The other marked difference in the Indian electorate is the shelving of the concept of ideology - its hard to find a party sticking to any basic ideology - all are mix and match to form the goverment for which they are flexible enough to do away with any staunch idelogy and accept the change in the favour of people(not though very voluntarily!)

So Dear Netas - Mind your own business and responsibility - your performance is counted and observed by us every minute and you maynot have a good appraisal or can be even cruelly chucked out of your cushy job if the performance rate is not extraordinary. Mind this that its the toughest job to please millions and also look at your own benefits - its either way for you!!

Although I cant vouch 100% on the system - its too early but at least there has been a start to clean it and choose only those who are performers and less of tall talkers. The young generation of savvy politicians are also most welcome in this system and are wanted for the radical change required in economy or society as a whole.

All in All - its a feel better system working in this country after 60 long years - Better late than Never as the saying goes!!

Kawal - A miracle habitat for tigers

The struggle for survival for a tiger – Kawal
Diya


On the northern most tip of Andhra Pradesh, lies the district of Adilabad. Nearly 40 percent of Adilabad’s area comprises of sanctuaries and national parks of dry deciduous teak forests. Situated amidst these forests, is the extremely scenic Kawal wildlife sanctuary.

Established in 1965 with the purpose of safeguarding the endangered species in their natural habitat, an area of 893 sq kms was set aside owing to the richness of Kawal’s bio-diversity.

The beauty of this forest immediately catches the eye as one venture’s inside. The entire Kawal range in the distance encircles a vast area of flat expanse where nature and its bounty once thrived.

It’s dense and thrilling once you start walking inside from any point of the buffer area. The saddest part is since it’s not declared as a tiger reserve although it has about 9-10 tigers as per the last census you can view the security lapse, good bit of felling everywhere. And the most interesting part is even after all this anarchy, tiger and other animals like sambhar, cheetal, Bear thrive with all the human population in and around which itself is a wonder.

Good combinations of Darwin’s theory of existence – thrive through mutual respect and fight it out for survival.

A 280 kms drive from Hyderabad via Siddhipet, Karimnagar, Lakshattipet to reach Jannaram village will take about 5hrs. A night long or early morning journey gives you the leverage of reaching there in the morning and straight head for the buffer area or the core parts by walking with the local rangers. The DFO office is at Jannaram and he will be helpful enough to get you a forest ranger to escort you towards Alinagar/Dongapalli side or Nirmal side of the forest.

The walk leads you through villages, small tribal encroachments together with hoof marks and paw marks of Bear, Deer. All kinds of living beings seem to live in harmony without any confrontation but sadly we humans don’t like to be at peace. So you get to see the major human interventions in the form of extensive felling everywhere in the name of cheap politics.

The only other lodging is the forest guest house in Jannaram which can be facilitated by the DFO. To understand and feel a forest in your own sweet time and pace nothing can beat Kawal since it is not commercialised or organised.

Tourism would be not only good for the forest due to increased publicity but is a haven for nature lovers for all its diversity.

Note: All nature lovers must be aware that Kawal is not like any other national park or reserve and one needs to be very responsible and respectful towards the flaura and fauna there. Special care needs to be taken with regards to maintaining sanctity and peace of the place due to its delicate balance between wild animals and humans. Since there are no specific rules, one needs to be more careful and take the help of forest officials when entering the forest. Responsible tourism is a great way towards giving focus to wild life conservation.

JAI HO!!

JAI HO! JAI HO! JAI HO!

Jai Ho to what??
India - our great country portrayed as a slum - dog? or we Indians dancing to the tune and proud and happy of our great slum heritage as if that's all we have - I would say we have come a long way from depicting India - land of snakes and elephants to land of slums, hoodlums, shit..... JAI HO to westener's who made an OSCAR....BAFTA....CANNES from it!!

So why are we clapping and exultant? Some would say - its an India based movie - India has indirectly made news through the gallis - dirt - cows - dons - riots. How about putting our country in news for the right things for a change - rich culture - heritage - history - science - medicine - worldwide influence with vedas or even kamasutra.

Others say - 3 Indians got to Oscars - kudos to their talent but went to Osacrs again for wrong reasons - songs like cholli ke pecche sound alike!!! I wonder why didn't Rahman make it to Oscars with one of his great origional scores!!

But does Indians know we once made it not only to Oscars but its highest award - Lifetime Achievement for the very right reason - Satyajit Ray - how many clap to that? His movies are specially archieved in Hollywood and different other parts of the world as a rich glory and art.

I would not be surprised if the whole 'firangee' crew of Slumdog(together with Dev the actor who doesnot know the name of our Prime Minister) is slyly laughing on our sheer ignorance and stupidity of being proudly part of a masala block buster like any other B-Grade Bollywood movie with all gory scenes from the dark lanes of Mumbai.

I also wonder - what message did the Oscar guys give us? The award which has gone to greats like Ben Hur - Titanic is sharing the space with Slumdog with 9 nominations!!!

A big thought to ponder......

JAI HO! JAI HO!

Life in Caves

Air conditioned surrounding, stereo phonic effect, hidden from evils of the world - dont start imagining a new world is being created - its a LIFE IN CAVES.
A life well lived by our ancestors. Places where great meditators achieved the most impossible - control of senses and attainment of peace.
In todays world the whole enigma lies in our relentless try to achieve peace through different artificial forms. The more we try the more we see ourselves detached from nature and self. Machines which we use on a daily basis to make our life easier is making us detached from our inner self, confidence, power of brain. We get lost without mobiles, computers, TV etc and if we delve deep inside our souls we will find that we are no more self dependant, thoughtful individuals but weaklings totally sold in the hands of machines.
A short time travel to our past will reveal that we the same individuals had the power not only to control our senses of hunger, emotion, body temparture but also immense memory power, strength of mind to overcome all.
Sometimes I truly wonder whether we have really advanced as we claim or just evolving backwards into an ameba - the first one cell living vegetable.
The great director and philosopher Satyajit Ray;s movie Aguntuk is based on the philosophy which makes us think on our futile existence and the peaceful life of cave dwellers and tribals - people who are and were more connected to nature and their inner self.

A poignant thought.....

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION

Sounds so cliche' - the famous saying goes - ''resolutions are meant to be broken''....so let me make a list of resolutions which are meant to be BROKEN!!! hehehe

1. Work...work..work
2. Talk...talk..talk about changing the world
3. Plastic smile...laugh at social causes
4. Bitch and gossip about the world going wrong
5. Blame all except yourself for all dirts
6. See to it that everyone is happy all round except yourself
7. Get blocked in the pent called city and pretend to be happy
8. Dream what others dream to be part of the so called rat race
9. Love one and all while bitching about them behind their backs
10. Follow the above list to its fullest!!!

What a relief to have a good NEW YEARS RESOLUTION!!

HAPPY 2009!!