A Rich Haul

I just returned from a short and hectic ten day tour of Bangalore. Of this trip, I could have chosen to tell you about the flight which got cancelled, or the flight which we missed, of the various airports that we spent a LOT of time in, of how Bangalore can now only be described as a city under construction, of the many plans made and the many more that were cancelled even before they were made, of how I almost visited Mysore, Belur, Halebid, Sringeri etc... Though these were exciting and fun in themselves, I choose to tell you instead, about what excited me the most - My overall haul of 10 books this summer.

These last two months have seen me come by 10 books at the overall cost of 1100/-. The price of these books have ranged between Rs 20/- (for a Colleen McCulough Classic) to Rs 395/- for "MyChina Diary" by K. Natwar Singh. The genre of the books encompasses everything from the super trashy ("Why Mars and Venus Collide"), to general fiction (2 Sidney Sheldons) a classic (Colleen McCullough's "The Ladies of Missalonghi") Contemporary Fiction (Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss") to Self Development (Deepak Chopra's "Power, Freedom and Grace" ) Political Non Fiction (My China Diary), Political Fiction ("A Case of Exploding Mangoes" - about General Zia Ul Haq's assassination), History ( Killing Rage - about the IRA and it's struggle), and Biography (Angela's Ashes).

Even the places from where I acquired these books are just as varied - ranging from a mail order from the India Today Book Club, Delhi, a footpath and a second hand book store, Bangalore and a Bookstore at the Kolkata airport.

What has remained constant however is my smug pleasure at each of these acquisitions. :-)

A Diversion.

I was supposed to be writing this post from Bangalore. I was supposed to have reached there last night. Instead am still in Ranchi. Only because Air Deccan did not think it profitable to fly us to Kolkata from where we had our next flight. Anyway, so the plan was such that I would have had a seven hour halt at Kolkata. I was soo excited to be going back to the city 'one last time', to visit friends, go back to college for a while, (maybe even make a face or two at a particular teacher), go 'hang out' again at City Center, have an 'Amul' Mango ice cream there, and what the heck maybe even squeeze in a visit to Mani Square.
Instead I will now be flying via Mumbai tomorrow(Air Deccan willing). Darn!

Being a tourist at home

Recently, two of my friends from Kolkata visited Ranchi. They carefully co-ordinated their trip so that the second arrived one day after the first one left. What that meant was that, everyday, for about a week, we would leave our house at 9:00 am (just when the sun had decided that it was time to turn on some serious heat) and stayed out till 4:00 pm (till just when the sun decided that it was time to start winding down for the day), making sure that we caught as much of the summer heat as was possible. What it also meant was, that for the first time in a really long time, I got the opportunity to sightsee around Ranchi. Twice. I have raved about the beauty of Sikkim and Kerala and Tamil Nadu , and now it is time to tell you about Ranchi.

Ranchi, was the Summer Capital of Bihar for a really long time. Situated on the Chota Nagpur plateau at a height of 2140 ft, this quaint little hill station was known for it's pleasant weather, water falls and lakes. The temperatures, I have been assured, never rose beyond 30 degrees and it used to be the talk of the town the day it rose to 32 degrees. And almost every evening, I am told, it used to rain. Now those days are gone of course. But the temperatures here, rarely go beyond 40 degrees these days and two or three days of intense heat is still invariably followed by a cool, refreshing shower.

As with all the other places I have written about, I will not talk about the various 'tourist spots' of Ranchi, be it the Jagannath Mandir, Pahari Mandir, Tagore Hill, Crocodile Park, Rock Garden, Nakshatra Van, Dhurwa dam, or the Kanke dam etc. I will however, spare a word or two for the wonderful Ormanjhi Zoo, to say only this - that in all my 22 years of zoo visiting I have come across only four that are worth putting on the favourites list:
1. The Himalayan Zoological Park, Sikkim
2. The Trivandrum Zoo, Kerala and Ormanjhi Zoo, Ranchi and
3. The Mysore Zoo, Karnataka.
(Here, I must record my dissapointment with the much touted Alipur Zoo at Kolkata. Appalingly, it has become merely yet-another-ill-kept-zoo!)

Also, worth mentioning are the various water-falls and lakes around this city. Dassam Falls (10 falls), Johna falls, Hundru Falls, Ranchi lake etc were a major tourist attraction even till around 10 years ago. Sadly however, Naxal infestation has meant that only the Ranchi lake is accessible these days and in a limited at-your-own-risk kind of way, - the dassam falls.

However the thing that makes Ranchi so endearing is the typical small town feel - where it is still scandalous for a girl to sit on the front seat of an auto, where eyebrows are raised when kids take up anything other than science or at the very least commerce for their +2, where you still draw stares if you wear sunglasses, but also where neighbours bring you food after you come back from a long trip out of town, where there is still enough greenery enough to ensure that squirrels, sparrows, a variety of other birds, butterflies etc are not a rare commodity, and where organic food is unheard of since all that you get is farm fresh anyway. People would be appalled if it were otherwise.

But the best thing about Ranchi, a trait which it shares with Bokaro (another city where I spent 6 of the most formative years of my life) is simply that it is inhabited by Biharis. Throughout my life I have drawn stares which have ranged from disgusted to pitiful when I have told people from the more 'developed' parts of the country that I am from Bihar (OK now, technically, Jharkhand). I only smile in response. You would have to have stayed here to appreciate that a typical Bihari is one of the friendliest people in the country, he is also one of the most cultured. (yes yes, scoff away) He has a sweet tongue (be it Maithli, Bhojpuri or the many other dialects they speak here) and has a few of the tastiest dishes I have ever tasted. (do make it a point to try malpua, litti, sattu ka parantha, dal puri, kheer, thekua, dahi chuda, and lai). And of course he has chatt and holi. Enough said.

And speaking of Ads...

...I have also decided to post my pick for the top five Best and Worst Ads on TV (seen either today or in the near past):

The Best Five: -
5. Max New York Life Child Plans: 'Czechoslovakia'.
4. Sundrop Refined Oil: 'जलेबी!!'
3. Airtel: पापा का फ़ोन आया था न? + The first ad with Rahman and his tune.
2. Havells - Wires that don't catch fire. (what I love most abt this ad is that it's a 'silent' ad)
1. Orbit Chewing Gum: TOW the slaves lighting up a medieval city!

The Worst Five: -
5. BSNL Broadband - '2mbps superspeed, BSNL is all you need'
4. Airtel - The Mahadevan and Vidya Balan series.
3. Hyundai I10: 'It's zippy too'.
2. Havells - 'छूटे पसीना मुश्किल है जीना.'
1. Axe: The Axe Effect - ALL Ads in this series.

And speaking of Zoozoos...

.... here are my picks for the top ten zoozoo ads: -

10. Cricket Commentary on your mobile

9. Fashion Tips

8. Be the Star of the match

7. Dating Tips :)

6. IPL Alerts on your mobile

5. Phonebook Backup

4. Beauty Alerts

3. Vodafone Maps

2. Download Games

1. Stock Alerts

Honourable Mentions: -

1. Bhakti Geet

2. Fun Box with two year warranty

3. Chote recharge

4. Can't Answer? set a busy Message

5. Send a Voice SMS

IPL Season II

Watching IPL this time round, brings back memories of last year: We were all interning in Bombay, had no access to TV and thus only distantly and sporadically followed the fortunes of the various teams. No TV also meant a few other things:

1. That we spent most free evenings hanging out on Marine Drive. And once....
After spending an entire day bumbling around Bandra and Hill Road - 'shopping', we landed at Bandra Banstand for, you know hanging out, were extremely disappointed at the kind of sea front we encountered, decided that ONLY Marine Drive could be good enough for our tired souls, made the hour long train journey to Grant Road and then started the 15 minute walk required to reach our favourite quiet spot. But Lo and Behold! The fast moving traffic on Marine Drive was crawling, the entire place was swarming with police vehicles, policemen, the Press, the general public... pandemonium prevailed! It prompted us to ask a policeman for an explanation. "The Match!" was the only thing he said before rushing to sort out yet another road fight. It took us a little while longer to put 2 and 20 together - to remember and realise that it was the IPL opening ceremony at the Wankhede stadium that we had stumbled upon. I would like to believe that but for the near empty pockets, we would have gotten into the stadium. So anyway, we contended ourselves with sitting on the embankment, our hair blowing in the cool sea breeze, licking a series of Naturals Ice creams, listening to the music playing inside, hearing the crowd roar every time a new jig started, and then finally seeing first hand, what was arguably the best fireworks display I have seen in a loong time. And that is how ladies and gentlemen, I ended up 'watching' the opening ceremony of IPL! It is indeed a unique pleasure to be able to tell people, while watching a rerun of last year's opening ceremony on TV, exactly which flavour of ice cream you were eating, right outside the stadium when a particular roar from the crowd went up. :)

2. That I waited to get to office everyday so that I could read the newspaper to find out as much as I could about the previous day's match and read the post match analyses. It was during these surreptitious paper reading sessions that I fell in love with the printed, one day late coverage of cricket matches. All I can say is, it has a charm which watching the match or watching the news of the match on NDTV and such like, can never match.

Last year, my favourite two teams did horribly, Vijay Mallya cried foul and washed dirty linen in public, I got all the IPL news in slow-mo, watched nearly nothing live, and hated the cheerleaders. This year by contrast, though I missed the opening ceremony (both live as well as the rerun), my favourite team has suddenly started doing well (touch-wood), I like the jerseys better, there has been very little washing of dirty linen in public, and the only kind that exists (the Fake IPL Player) - I find very funny, and I have seen the ball by ball coverage of almost every match on TV. Also, off field, I love the new Vodafone ads and wait anxiously everyday to see what new wonder they have come up with.

So, all in all I should have enjoyed this year's edition better than last year's. I wonder why it is then, that IPL for me, still means IPL 2008.

Uniquely Sikkim!

Well enough is enough. I spent the week between April 17th to 24th in Sikkim. And ever since, this post has been in 'draft mode'. I have finally decided that I am sick and tired of seeing incomplete posts on my dashboard and thus here it is.....
Tales of the beauty of this tiny state nestled between the mountains of the lower Himalayas is a tale that has been told umpteen times. I do not wish to repeat it here. Here are a few pics though to give you an idea:

Instead, what I will attempt to do is, give you an idea of a few things that combine to make Sikkim, uniquely Sikkim: -
My first impression of Sikkim was of its excellent administeration. Literally the first thing our Taxi Driver said on entering Sikkim was, “Yahaan ka kanoon bahut khatra hai”. By that, he definitely did not mean that the laws there are any more or less barbaric than the laws in the rest of the country, but only that the implementation of those laws there is far better than anywhere else I have seen. :)

Secondly, the people seem to love their Chief Minister. Mr. Pawan Chamling has been in power for fifteen years in Sikkim, and everybody we spoke to was very confident that he would come back to power this time too. Well, it’s not difficult to see why. He’s brought such a lot of development and prosperity to Sikkim! I am yet to visit any other place / state where I have gone a full week without seeing signs of abject poverty or encountering people begging from tourists. However, What development and prosperity has also meant is that there is a LOT of construction going on everywhere in Sikkim. That has compromised with the cleanliness of the place a little bit. But definitely nowhere near the levels we are used to seeing on the streets of Calcutta or Ranchi or any other city.

Thirdly, the only vehicles seen on the roads of Sikkim are: Local Taxis and very few local private vehicles. Due to the hilly terrain and roads that go up or down at angles of nearly 60* all the while incorporating hairpin bends, no two wheelers, rickshaws (whether of the auto or cycle variety), cycles, or even public transport such as city buses etc are seen on the roads. A few buses owned by the Sikkim Nationalised Transport can be seen plying, but they are few and far in between. The roads are just too narrow to allow a bus to take up the entire space. Stringent license requirements, and rigorous driving tests ensure that Sikkim has one of the lowest rates of road accidents, despite having roads at gravity defying angles! So most people walk to their various destinations, which means Sikkim must also have a very fit population!

Fourthly, we kids from the plains are plain spoilt. What with the buses to take us to and from school, public transport wherever we want to go or private vehicles at home to ferry us around. Lines of Sikkimese kids can be seen every morning, happily walking precariously on the edge of the road, collecting flowers and other knick knacks on the way, wearing traditional school uniforms, merrily make their way to school – which could be anywhere between 5 to 10 kms away one way. Little kids from Nursery onwards are expected to walk long distances, since even older kids cannot be expected to carry them for upto 10 Kms. Pity I didn’t think enough to take a pic of any of these kids.

Fifthly, the fact that the Sikkimese aesthetic sense translates into all houses big or small, rich or poor, have flowers adorning them. Every last one of them! If there is a man living somewhere, there will be atleast be a flowerbed / a pot adorning it. And it makes the entire city look so pretty!!

Sixthly, I love how friendly and warm the people are. Despite the enormous hardships they have to face due to the terrain, they are a hardworking happy people, ever smiling and ever ready to help. And that pleasantness rubs off on the tourists too – making the entire stay all the more pleasant. I also love the straightness and the simplicity of the Sikkimese people. Sample a random conversation I overheard:

Random Girl to Policeman guarding entrance to Rumtek Monastery: Police Uncle, aap bole the thoda phool denge. (think of it said in the lilting accent of the Sikkimese)
Policeman (gruffly): Kaun sa phool?
Random girl: Mamma bola ki aap phool denge ghar ke liye!
Policeman (gruffly): haan haan, kaun sa phool?
Random Girl: Dheere boliye na, Dar lagta hai. Rose chahiye tha.
That girl was easily at least 15 – 16 years old. Now where else would you find a person scolding and telling a policeman to keep his voice down and tone normal because it scares her?

Seventhly, of course this is the land of the Red Panda and the Snow Leopard and the tibetan wolf etc etc. as also the land of the thousands of kinds of flowers and the three kinds of bamboo.
A co-passenger who was on the train with us both on our way to and from NJP remarked on the way back, ' Sikkim में लगता ही नही है की India में हैं। Foreign लगता है "। He couldn't have hit the nail straighter on the head.

'Recent' Activities.

Sooo..... I'm BACK! ta..da.. (ok so it does not have the same ring as Terminator's "I'll Be Back!!!" - but no harm trying. what say?) I have had an interesting two months off.... went to Bombay for a second internship, loved it again, changed accomodations 4-5 times in four weeks, got a job towards the end of it all (yaay!!), was back home in time for Diwali!!! (yaay!! again) , went on a mini vacation to Shantiniketan and Bishnupur, saw beautiful terracotta temples there - again loved it, came back to college in time for the girls cricket tournament, got to captain my batch team, had a lot of fun running after tennis balls for two weeks, won the tourney comfortably, played some throwball too, miraculously made it through to the semis, almost got dragged into playing basketball and pittu, am now aiming to play some badminton & hockey, want to join the new gym too (yes winter is the sporty semester in college) want to do a lot more... but am too lazy and now tied up to do even half or any of it, watched 'batch harmony' go for a toss in the course of four tumultous recruitment meetings, have watched it return almost immediately thereafter, and now am in the course of trying to help with the recruitment process in college. Phew!!! 

oh and yes, had a wonderful birthday, saw winter finally arrive in Kolkata, had a fun Christmas with two rounds of collective carols and song singing (one open air and the other in warmer conditions), had a WONDERFUL Christmas brunch and am now waiting for "NUJS Night" on Jan 1st. 

In between, in addition to reading (for updates on which please refer to the 'recently read' and 'currently reading' lists) I have rediscovered my interest in Hindi poetry. Wanted to put up one I really liked... but for some reason, the transliteration feature is not working on my blog. So once I figure out what is wrong, you will be treated / subjected to Hindi poetry!!! :-) till then ciao!

'Twitter Updates'** (with footnotes an' all)

Well, have been meaning to post on a number of issues for some time now. But I blame it on lots of work, unfinished thoughts and general ennui that I haven't actually got around to doing it!. But now exams are done, I've bid farewell to the last monsoon semester in college, am at home and free, so I thought that I must record some of the many things that I have been meaning to post about throughout this very-eventful semester.

Things I Loved: -

1. Few classes and lots of free time.

2. Playing TT nearly obsessively (till even the teacher tired of me and the game), the occassional walks, serious 'netting' (I love this word) and watching season after season of sitcom after sitcom which replaced movies in my list of 'best-ways-to-spend-evenings/nights-in-hostel'.

3. That the monsoons hit us earlier than usual. The recent paving of the college path held up and the days of water logging and wading through knee deep water to college became a thing of the past.

4. The library AC too functioned beautifully, perhaps chilling to the bone people who decided to spend long hours there, but invitingly cool for those like me who 'visited' the library only for small stretches of time.

5. Batch 'bonhomie' as evident CR (non) elections [take a bow, Mallu], in every joint class, The Committee*** (non) elections etc. The friendship that quickly developed between the 9 members who were 'thrown together by force of circumstances' and practically lived in one particular room of the university, that we had gotten through four years of law school without killing each other etc.

6. That we won the most number of medals in Indian Olympic history, including the first gold in.. in don't know... forever!

7. Oh and ofcourse that our very own lovable-know-it-all-who-also-tries-to-be-modest-about-it*** moved back into hostel after a whole year!

Things I hated: - (as a response to each of the above points)

1. I hated that from the last week of July onwards, I had li'l or no time to generally chill. Projects, and presentations, subject vivas and exams all rushed in- with almost no break in between. I have been running headlong into one deadline or the other with hardly a break in between. It could be yet another dispatch or innumerable other follow-ups, or another rough draft or project to submit and presentation to give and finally exams to prepare for.

2. That I slowly gave up the various activities that I had taken up. Also, annoyingly, reading came down. I hate that these days that seems to be a recurring phenomenon.

3. That my umbrella got flicked. And so had to move around with a eye-catchy-red-and-white-(bravery colours) umbrella . Clarification: I am very grateful though for having been lent the umbrella. It was very handy, thank you so much my dear "know-it-all"! :-)

4. That faulty electrical wiring in the college meant that whenever any other AC (in addition to the library AC) in the university was switched on, the power would trip! Also, that not once did the extremely expensive power backup for the conference room work when it was desperately needed.

5. That some things that I had taken for granted turned out to be false. E.g. Had thought people were smart enough to know when it was something that you could control and when it was something that you couldn't. All the abusing and the name calling and the cold shouldering conclusively proved that I was wrong. so...

6. That we as a nation are sad enough to call ourselves the next in-thing in the world and yet celebrate like no tomorrow for the three measely medals that we have won! Surely a nation of over a billion people ought to be expected to be able to put up a better show - at the very least in the opening ceremony even if nowhere else! and NO, it is not a conclusive proof of either (i) that we have moved beyond cricket (we have just stopped winning here too and so it is no longer on the front page all that often) or (ii) that our sports infrastructure has dramatically improved (the three medals were won despite the State and not because of it)

7. Am mildly surprised that dear know-it-all seems to have unlearned all that we had manged to teach her about not HAVING to know everything so as to be in a position to give all exams on a moment's notice!

8. Oh and the realisation that I have only one semester left in college! cha!!!!!!

End notes: -

** This concept was stolen from a feature that I saw and liked, in this blog but was too lazy to add. [This is what comes from acknowledging what you stole from where, over a course of 45 projects - it becomes a habit!]

*** This is my effort towards coding things and people so as to "protect their identity" that I learnt from this blog. Though I must admit that the author of the referred blog is far wittier and much better with nicknames than I will ever be!

P.S: - Since the concept of endnotes itself was stolen from this blog, was beginning to wonder whether anything was original in this post at all! Well at least the list is. I promise.

Part II: Wayanad

So I recently made a third trip to Kerala. I have now covered Cochin, Trivandrum, Kovalam, and Wayanad. And this time true to my earlier stated intentions, we (me and twelve other members of my Family) stayed for longer and did not crowd the trip. Such an itinerary left us free to explore Wayanad at will and leisure over a period of four days.

Wayanad is a small but popular hill station in Kerala about 2,300 ft above sea level. Therefore, obviously, this place is a lot different from my earlier descriptions of the Kerala with the pristine sun kissed beaches, the unbroken line of coconut trees stretching for as far as the eye can see on one side, and the clear blue and green waters of the Indian Ocean or the Arabian Sea on the other. Wayanad brings forth and presents to us the other side of Kerala - the one which has Mountains, valleys, plantations and virgin evergreen forests, with beautiful lakes nestled in between them, again stretching as far as the eye (or even binoculars) can see. While the coastal side of Kerala is all about quality R&R, Wayanad gives you the option of either relaxing in one of the many beautiful resorts located here or choosing a more adventurous path and going on some truly challenging rock climbing and trekking expeditions to Edakkal caves, various waterfalls (we went to Meenmooty and were totally floored both by the trek as well as the indescribable beauty of the falls itself), Chembra peak (said to be the third highest peak in south India, this peak is always shrouded in mists and clouds and is a sight to behold!).

We chose the second option and hiked our way up to Edakkal caves and the rocks beyond and down a steep mountainside to the Meenmooty waterfalls. Unfortunately, we did all of this on the same day and thus had to suffer from mild to severe body ache (depending upon individual fitness levels) for the next day or two. That made up my mind for me and I decided to stick therein after to long walks on river islands and across tame looking rivers and the surrounding countryside and not attempt the 4 hour trek up Chembra Peak as did two of my more enthusiastic (and fitter???) cousins. My walks took me into plantations growing coffee, bananas, areka nuts, pepper and even some tea. Apart from all of this we also did the usual touristy stuff of visiting all the 'points' and 'views' around Wayanad. The whole experience was not only very rewarding but also strangely (in spite of the physical exhaustion of the first day) very relaxing.

My only disappointment was that because we went just when the tourist season in Wayanad was ending but had not quite ended, there were people and tourists at every spot we went to. I like the feeling of being alone and secluded and surrounded only by nature! This, was not always possible in all the 'touristy' spots of Wayanad. Of course, courtesy our always-ready-to-help resort owner, we also went to a few out of the way spots and they were fun, being all that I wanted them to be. But still, somehow I never felt 'away from civilisation' - if you know what I mean. Wherever we went there were either other tourists or locals living in quaint little cottages complete with electricity and telephone lines! Sure it denotes the development levels of Kerala, the fact that they have connected even the remote parts with electricity and phone lines, but somehow and for some reason it disappointed me!

But apart from that small almost forgettable bit, Wayanad was every bit as magical as it is said to be. I fall more and more in love with this state every time I visit it!

Vacations!

'Vacations' is a slight misnomer for this post since today is officially the last day of mine. I'm bunking a week of college and therefore have a few days of grace! However this post is more about what I have been doing the last two and a half months...

More than anything the last few months have been about travelleing from place to place... not so much exotic travelling (though that too is included)as just general good use of the Indian Railways. Here's a synopsis:

March 13th - Kolkata to Ranchi.
March 15th - Ranchi to Mumbai.
Sometime in April - Mumbai to Matheran.
Sometime in April - Mumbai to Alibaug.
May 1st - South Mumbai to Thane. (this, believe me, is atleast as eventful a journey as between two cities)
May 4th - Mumbai to Ranchi (in course of which I lost my well loved Mobile phone)
May 11th - Ranchi to Bangalore.
May 17th - Bangalore to Vellore and back.
May 20th - Bangalore to Toranagallu.
May 21st - Toranagallu to Bangalore.
May 23rd - Bangalore to Wayanad (Road trip)
May 26th - Wayanad to Bangalore.
May 28th - Bangalore to Ranchi.
Whew! have a week's respite before I make the return trip from Ranchi to Kolkata.
hmm.. maybe I'll do a post on Toranagallu, Vellore and Wayanad...some other time.. till then ciao.