The day when I grew up

It was the 8th class vacation I think. Every vacation we used to go to my mom's native place and stay there for about a month. Lot of my uncles used to stay there and it was like a big colony, where there were about 30 kids and amazing fun. But it was a strange time, because all of sudden you felt too old to play games like Dabba Gul, pakadam Padki, and you were not get good enough to play cricket and ended up being made the 12th man, or being laughed at. But this vacation we found something nice to do.

One of my uncles had a cloth shop, and this vacation one of my cousins and myself, thought that it was time for us to leave all these boyhood things and go to the shop and learn something. The shop generally used to open at 9:30, and it became a craze for us to go to the shop at 9 in the morning, and open the shop ourselves. We had about five salesmen in shop and they used to arrive and greet us warmly and kindly and happily. In morning any ways there were no customers, so it was ok. It made us feel very important, we felt that we were giving uncle luxury of coming to the shop a little later. For that half an hour we were the kings, and we managed the entire shop, though it was hardly ever that any customer walked in to the shop at that time, and any ways the salesmen used to take care of them. But we sat behind the counter, and looked over the street feeling very important, ordering some tea and something to eat from the nearby shop, and discussing all kinds of imaginary scenarios of how we would deal with customers and make a good deal. This continued till uncle arrived, at 9:30, and then customers would start coming. By 10:30 the shop would become over crowded and then we used to just sit in one corner and observe everything, so that we can become good enough to be part of the action.
At noon we used to have lunch in the shop itself, there was some thrill in eating lunch under the counter in the cramped place, and eating it fast along with uncle so that we can get to see the customers again very soon.
We used to go home at about four in the evening, with the feel of having accomplished something. Also during the dinner time, other uncles and aunties would praise us saying how good and disciplined boys we were growing up to be.

This went on for few days, until came the Sunday. Well it did make the life very difficult, because one thing which I thoroughly enjoyed was Jungle book on Doordarshan. And going to the shop at nine meant that I would need to miss that. That was too much the sacrifice to pay for growing up. . I loved Jungle book, and I had never missed a single episode of it, except when there were catastrophes like power failure or such things, which also resulted in me being in bad mood for a long time afterwards. I talked to my cousin about it, but he said that it will not look appropriate to tell everyone that we did not want to go to the shop because we wanted to watch the Jungle book. So we had to decide, we could not also fall sick because, both of us cant be sick at the same time, and we wanted to be together in either of decisions. So we went to the shop, and hoped that in some adjacent shop there might be some TV, but it was not there. After sometime I dropped the entire thought of seeing Jungle book, and started taking keen interest in the proceedings inside the shop.

I wanted to be tough, and in my mind I had started believing that I had grown up. I decided that this was the end of Jungle book, and all such stuff, and it was time to do more grown up things and make your presence felt among people.

It became 10am and uncle still did not arrive at the shop, we had an extended time at the counter. The shop sales were managed by the salesman. Uncle did not come until, about 11in the morning.
"What happened, why so late?" I asked him
"Oh I was watching Jungle book" he said .

Little Gesture

Few of the days I go to office by bus. BMTC recently has done a amazing job of introducing new buses and bus routes and the public transport is not bad at all in Bangalore.

In Bangalore if take a bus at about 8-9AM in morning, school and college going kids form the major part of commuters. So yesterday when I was travelling I saw this two boys standing near the door, not that the bus was full, but I know these boys always stand at the door. In late teens, who look very light hearted and enjoying the fresh breeze, and probably the freedom that they might have got by entering the college from the tight regiment of school. They were full of life and totally careless.

Somehow I have never carried a great impressions of people standing next to door, I felt they always seemed to do it to check out girls and show off. But this impressions carried only till the next bus stand. As soon as bus stand came they would got out of the bus, and stood at each side of the door. As soon as Children would come to the last step to disembark the bus they would pick them up and make them jump, helping them with their bags and lunch bags and water bags. Kids would smile and they would love it. I can imagine, because I remember when I was young, I would hate the last step in bus, which would generally be significantly at bigger height, and if the bus moved slightly there was a fear of falling.

This activity was repeated at every bus stand that came, and they seemed to do it as if it was part of their job. They were converting a morning heavy polluted traffic bus ride of Bangalore in to a light, wonderful, full of smiles bus ride.

That made my day.

The case of a smelling shoe

Something was stinking, the other day when I had just come to office. It was bad, I ignored it for sometime, but then every now and then, my senses reminded me that it was stinking. Something from down, was it the shoe? What else could stink in office. There were three people in the office, the other two were sitting together and working on some problem, am sure they were also feeling the same, but guess it was too embarrassing to point to someone that the shoe was stinking so everyone was quiet.

My shoes don't ever stink, at least that is what I always thought. But was it the other two people, I did not know.
I remember the last time I had been faced with such a smell was way back in hostel. Somehow from somewhere an insurance agent had come and his shoes were terribly terribly stinking. Today the smell was not that strong, but still it was bad, specially in the corporate office.

I wanted to ensure that my shoe was not smelling, so making it look very natural I just dropped my pen and bent down and ooopss... the right leg was stinking. It was bad. The more embarrassing thought was that I had been running around at couple of customer locations in the morning giving some marketing presentations and all that with this stinking shoes, But I had not realised that in morning, probably because I was fully absorbed. Probably someone would have tried to suggest me, but I would not have never paid any attention.

Well I don't know what you do in this kind of situations, I thought for possible solution, did not want to be caught washing the shoe in the loo. Finally decided that it was enough and I should call it a day, and should leave office, before giving a chance to anyone to tell me that my shoes were stinking. Thought would reach home early, get rid of the shoes and then send them off for washing or whatever treatment they required.

When I reached home rather early at four, and I removed my shoes to examine it, I noticed a big chunk of Cow Dung, that was smeared on the bottom of my right shoe.

Another 10K in Bangalore

Marathon, Marathon, Marathon (Actually it was not a marathon, it was just a 10K run, but I guess marathon for most of us) another one got over in Bangalore. While running yesterday I was getting bugged about this thought about the history of marathon and here I found it on google.

According to which,

"

The modern Athens Marathon commemorates the run of the soldier Pheidippides from a battlefield at the site of the town of Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 B.C. Legend has it that Pheidippides delivered the momentous message "Niki!" ("victory"), then collapsed and died.

"

I was just talking about marathon to my friend in office today morning and he said,

"Why would you want to run marathon? It blocks the roads and create chaos. Have you ever thought what happens to the ambulances during the marathon time?"

He had a valid point but then I guess such kind of events are very important for the city, because it kind of gives you a break from normal work, day to day life and just sometime to think. I specially loved all the people who had come down on streets to cheer the runners. Also it is so nice to see so many old people running, and so many people running for some cause that they support.

But then the ambulance points was very valid, and I tried calling some hospitals to see if there has been any problem yesterday because of marathon, but then I did not get any response, and I also thought it was not a good idea to ask because, they were more bothered to handle any emergency cases if any rather than answering some queries, which would be used to write the blog, probably some of the doctors reading the blog can comment on this.

So I guess instead of stopping these events we just have to take up steps to improve and organize these events with least amount of discomfort to other people.

Like last time around there were lot of bottles thrown everywhere,

this time an organization called Saahas made lot of effort to try different alternatives to plastic bottles and also

to put the bins at different places so that bottles are not thrown every where. Well the alternative part did not go well, but this time around they managed to put the bins, which did result in much cleaner roads. Really appreciate their effort and am sure next run we would do better to try some alternatives to plastic bottles as well.

Do run a marathon when it happens next, it is really fun, it will make you exercise your limit and you get so high when you just cross the finish line. As someone had rightly put the banner,

"Pain is temporary but the pride is permanent"

Remembering my first election...

That was long time back. But I do still remember it very clearly. Everyday we used to go to school in a bus, not a school bus but the public transport. Me and my sister, I was in third class I think. Things were very different at that time, small town, good busses, less crowded, and we used to have almost the same crowd going in that bus everyday, and most people kind of knew each other, not personally but as a fellow bus mates. 

 

It was election time then, and there was this guy who used to travel with us, much older, he was in college at that time. And just like that he asked me,

"Whom would you vote for if you have been given a chance to vote?"

"Congress", I said, without sligthest hesitation

"Why would you want to vote for Congress?"

"I will vote for congress because Sarojni Naidu was from Congress", I said,

We had just done one lesson in English about Sarojni Naidu and I was very impressed with her and she was from congress, some first minister or something and I don’t even remember now and that seemed logical enough to vote for Congress because she worked for congress.

 

But then this guy burst out laughing, and he even told one fellow old passenger who was absorbed in reading the newspaper, that we would vote for congress because Sarojni naidu was from congress. I did not quite realize then that why would he want to laugh at us for this.

 

"No you should vote for BJP, because they are building temples" he said,

Till then probably I had never heard of BJP, or probably had never paid any attention to it, but this was first time. And at that time all of sudden this awe of BJP was generated, because of course building temples at that time did seem a very noble deed. As kids we used to love going to temples. Whenever we used to go for cycle rides or just play, if we ever passed any temple we would make it a point to go, and try to remember and do all kinds of things in temple that we had seen mom and elders do when they went to temple, and ofcourse taking "prasad" back home. It was also a great thrill for us to discover new temples, small small ones, and then come back and report to mom, as if discovered gold.

 Anyways, but this thing about, BJP as a party who were noble and build temples stayed with me for a long long time, until much later when I grew up and started realizing that how bad and ugly these temple building business is. And I just feel sad for that college guy in the bus and for others who vote just because some party seems to be doing some outwardly noble deed like this. 

Related Posts:

My First Job.

First day at School.

Of Tree walk and Battle of Plassey

Yesterday I went to this Tree walk which was organized by Bangalore walks, they do it every weekend.  So me, lekha and raghu landed up there 7 am in the morning on a sunday. 

 

Vijay was going to be our tour guide, you can find his entire series of articles on the Banglaore walks website. And I was expecting more of botanical kind of walk, where he would give information about each and every tree, but then it was much more than that. What was very impressive was that he told us lot of stories about each and every tree, stories related to its origin or how it came about being in lalbaug abd his individual experiences and observations with the trees. 

 

For example he was explaining us this tree called Palash, I have seen this tree before but never paid much attention to it. It has a tree which has bright orange flowers, and it is also called the flame of the forest. Traditionally Gulal was made from the flowers of this tree (until all the synthetic gulal came into being), and it was used as dye for clothes. 

 

But well one of another interesting things that he told was that, apparently, battle of Plassey was fought in Palash groove and hence the name battle of Plassey. I googled little bit and found this in one of the NCERT text books.  (I don’t remember studying this, but isnt this good way to teach associated trees with history, it would be so easy to remember) 

 

From NCERT ,

 

"Did you know how Plassey got its name? Plassey is an anglicised pronunciation of Palashi and the place derived its name from the palash tree known for its beautiful red flowers that yield gulal, the powder used in the festival of Holi."

 

Photos of Palash tree,

Flowers of Palash tree

Palash tree in bloom

 

 

Like these there were other numerous stories which Vijay told, and it was fun.

 One another thing which I found particularly interesting was about Bamboo flowering.

It seems that Bamboo trees flower once in about 40-50 years, and during that they produce large quantities of seeds. After this bamboo dies and regenerates from these seeds. But this is not the end of story, apparently this large quantities of seeds result in substantial increase in rodent population in that year since rodents thrive on the seeds. And after consuming the seeds rodents move to fields and granaries and which results in large amount of crops getting destroyed. Apparently most of famines of Mizoram (which has substantial Bamboo forests) have been a result of this Bamboo flowering.  Hence Bamboo is also called "Flower of Famine".

From India Today,

 The flowering of Bamboo sends Mizoram into terrifying spiral crop devastation and food shortages. The last time bamboo bloomed 48 years ago, it led to famine and two decades of violent insurgency.

Related Hindu article here,

Researched article on Bamboo Flowering here. 

Related Stories: 

Story of Robert Clive

How Bangalore came in to existence

 

Lessons of 2008

This post should have come earlier, but in many ways my new year has started in Feb and I am still in process of wishing people happy new year. 

These are some of the things which I learnt or I should say realized in last year... not like rocket science or anything but still felt like penning them down.

Take Decisions: Lot of times in last year I spent time delaying making decisions, worrying and wondering what if I make the in correct decisions, how it is going to affect and all, but then when you in the constant state of going hence and forth and  it drains so much of your energy. So I realized it is always good to take decisions, instead of dilly-dallying it, you may take a wrong decisions but it is ok. At least you would be clear in your mind and would be able to concentrate on other things. 

Giving 100%: It is such a simple thing right, but most times I have realized is that I dont do it. Most times in job or otherwise I just sit almost like waiting for something to happen, and then would start working. But then these days now I just keep telling myself give 100% or just get out and take a break and do something else.  Even though I dont believe that there is anything like 100% because every time I give in my best effort I always realize that I could have done better, and also I keep realizing that I could do more, and am beginning to believe that we have infinite energy to make and do things if we ever want to do it.

Don’t think : "Thinking" not in the terms of thinking of solution to problems, but thinking as in terms of "what if". I spend so much time doing it, that it is not funny. Someone sent me in the email the other day, "Jo pata nahi hai, uske bare me sochne ka koi matlab nahi hai, aur jo pata hai, uske baare me sochne ka koi faida nahi hai."(What you dont know there is no point in thinking about it and what you know, there is no advantage in thinking about it).  And it is so true, I guess you have to constantly tell yourself to be in present and not keep dwelling in either past or future. 

Of course it is not that all these things are new to me, I have probably known them ever since, but then it is still just that I don’t apply these that much and now that am going to put little more effort in putting all these in place. :)

Page3 Stuff

The other day one of my journalist friends wanted me to go and cover one of the page3 parties on behalf of her. She was supposed to go and write about that, but then she had some personal emergency, and she asked me if I could go and just check out.

I went there in my normal jeans and kurta, but then when I went there the place looked kind of out of world. I have never been to such parties before, and everyone was like so polished and  artificial. There was hardly any man who was not in suit, and if at all there was any guy with the jeans, then he was like majorly hep-shep, with long hair and atleast couple of pierceing somewhere on the face. Everything looked so clean from outside, and I did not even talk to anyone, did not even shake hands, wondering if dust from my hands might spoil those nice suits. And ofcourse all women were also very expensively dressed.  There was this wiping of hands with tissue with each and every bite of food that you take, the size of starters were like very small, and waiters running left and right trying to ensure that everyone had atleast something to eat or drink.

The feeling was weird, but it was fun observing people. But then twenty minutes or so I got bored, because things seemed kind of repetitive. I just left wondering if I ever go this rich will I be attending these kind of Page3?

Taking the first step

The other day I was reading Seth Godin, and one thing that he said really struck me.

He said, look at your outbox and see how many mails that you sent out were the replies to incoming mails and how many were self initiatied emails. This could give you an indications of how time do you send in "reaction" as to "action". 

Ofcourse this does  not apply to everyone, but still i found this simple analysis very powerful.

So many times we just end up in life just waiting for something to happen and reacting and not acting. How many times we wait for some other person to start conversation, go over to adjacent cube to start talking instead of letting time go, in a gathering waiting to be forced to come forward to share the experience rather than volunteering, waiting for life to happen instead of making it happen.

Now whenever I reply to email, I have become little concious, wondering if I could have initiated that or should I start some similar conversation with some other person.

Cheers.

Happy Monday.

Tata Jagriti Yatra comes to an end..

11Jan, 8am, as soon as the train landed up in to the Mumbai central the yatra had ended. The journey across India for 18 days, through humidit of trivendrum to chilling cold from Lucknow to Delhi came to the end.

Initially I had thought that I would blog about each and every day of the yatra, but then after the first days things got so hectic that there was no time to blog, and I did not even realize where the 19 days disappeared. 

I am going to blog about the yatra in coming days, about the things I had seen and people whom I met, things that struck me and so on. 

 

Now as I settle down in to my original life style, I cant seem to forget the train. Train had started looking like home,  and somehow I never wanted that thing to end. Telling good bye to everyone that day on mumbai central seemed so difficult, I just felt as if I had know these people for ages, even though 3 weeks back we were strangers. (I just knew 2 people of the 400 people who where there on train)

I learnt so many subtle things during the trip, things which I would not even realize. For one I remember first few days, everyone had their own set of things, tooth pastes, slippers, and so on, and as days went by people started sharing things like tooth pastes, soaps, lunch and dinner plates, chappels, sometimes even towels. 

I learned to sleep on the platform, well there is nothing much to learn there, but then, now I know that i can survive on the platform and use the railway waiting rooms for taking bath. I have never been fussy in life about luxurious but this trip even took things little further. 

Also more than anything, it is just a new refreshing look at life. We just get caught in office/work/gym/class kind environment and sometimes we can never get the chance to look at ourselves properly, and we just fail to appreciate certain things, and there is always a hand to hold,when I  meet different people from marketing,  people do tend to treat me in certain way, and expect certain things and behavior from me because they know I am a tech marketing corporate world.

But in train it was completely different. People from different backgrounds and it is good to talk to people and then try to figure out what kind of person different perceive you as. Like how much better you can speak Hindi and not Hinglish. And then you discover so many things about youself, things that you never noticed or seen before. There are so many things that different people can teach and things and small things that touch you and give you a entirely different perspective to things. 

I have come back all energetic and refreshed, with number of things that I want to do in my life. More importantly I have made great friends some of them I am sure will remain for a long time to come.

Now that I am typing this from my marketing conferences, strange kind of hangover is there, it seems like a very plesant dream.  It was like someone picked me up from your comfortable home/office setting and placed me in carnival with 350 different people, totally different way of life, and then dropped me back all of sudden back to my orginal life with loads of distinct memories, smells, sounds even though now they seem so distant. But then  constant scraps in facebook remind me that it was not a dream.

--

Goli

Related Reads:

Getting the wrong books.

Tata Jagriti Yatra

Getting the "wrong books"

Yesterday I had been to crossword to redeem one gift voucher that I had got long time back. I bought couple of books and then then as always I wrote my name on the book along with the date. 

For some reason yesterday, this simple activity made me travel 15 years back, when I was in school, and it used to be such a great thrill every year at the start of the school term to sit and write the names on new books that we used to get and what a thrill it used to be. That was the time to discard the old torn books (I have never been that organized kind of guy and my books by the end of the year were most often or not in atleast two parts), and fashion the new ones. 

I remember one such incident, I think I was in class five or something. And as every year we used to get the list of the books to buy, along with our report card for the next year. This time around, I had decided take money from parents and go and buy the books for myself, instead of waiting for parents to take off the time of their busy schedule to get them. Parents generally never hurried to get the books early, mostly they went just about a day before the school was supposed to be reopened. 

So this time around, I struggled hard and got money from parents and got the books for myself very much earlier then the school was supposed to start. And I spent rest of the vacation writing my name on the books slowly, after painfully selecting the pen that I wanted to use, and then trying to look for interesting pictured newspapers which I could use to cover the books, and so on. Finally the day came when my school started, and  to my surprise I found that the some of the books that I had got were incorrect. To my horror I had got the books which were not supposed to be of my syllabus, of some different grade. In the evening when I told this to my parents, they were upset, and we immediately went to the bookshop, but since I had put my name on the books with all kinds of pens, shopkeeper would not exchange it for the new books. My father had to buy another set of books for me, and he requested the shopkeeper to keep the "wrong books" and try to sell them even at half price to get some money back.

I dont remember my parents being very angry with me or something neither do I remember getting any punishment, just the instruction that from here on we were supposed to write names on  our books with pencil and not with pens. I dont even remember if my father got any money for those "wrong books", but I am sure that he made have made endless trips to the shop to check if the books were sold.  

I even remember that every year we used to get this number of notebooks that we need for the year.  Starting for english classwork, to english homework, to english composition to english grammar, different notebooks for different things. We used to need about 20 such notebooks, and then father used to sit and analyze and ask me  to use the same notebook for composition and grammar and do the partition in middle and so on. In our school they used to allow partition in the middle of notebook,  if the subject belonged to same teacher. So parents used to patiently sit and look at teachers and subjects and try to optimize the number of notebooks and reduce them to 15 or something, which I was never keen on, but convicing me with various kinds of reasons. 

When I think about it right now, I understand how much struggle it was for parents to save money for the start of year, for our books, notebooks, uniforms etc. Probably that was the most difficult times. And sometimes as kids, we were so adamant to make life difficult for them.  But they just went through all that, never making us realize the struggle they had to go through day in and day out. 

I owe so much to my parents for what and where I am today. 

Be Born Everyday

Read this lines on Pritesh's blog,  and I absolutely loved them, hence reposting here.  (He saw it on TV,  did not know such useful stuff comes on TV :) )

“Be born everyday
Aaj rockstar kal pilot
And who knows what the day after
Kabhi kisi anjan station par utar ke dekho
Kabhi kisi gumnam shahar ka ticket katao
Dusri ki galtiyo se kya seekhna, make your own mistakes yaar
Never resemble your passport photo for more than three months
Har subah shock your reflection
Explore
Bachpan ke kya kuch nahi banana chahte the
Why not today?
Be born everyday”

So what will you be today?

Do you want a Barren Bangalore?

Sunday, I went for this rally organized by Hasiru Usiru, protesting against the Bangalore authorities cutting trees and trees and more trees in bangalore for road widening and for Bangalore railway metro. It was really great to see so many people who came out on Sunday morning for the protest.

Ofcourse this is a debatable topic and many do feel that there is no other solution to Bangalore traffic, other than widening the roads and reducing the  green cover. Lot of people even have been skeptical if the protest is worth it. And if enough research has been done on the alternate solutions.

But being in Hasiru Usiru mailing list for quite some time, and knowing some of the people who are behind it, I have no doubt about their competency. Hasiru Usiru has done numerous studies and have made varioius reports, both of the ineffectiveness of widening of roads in long run and also on alternative solutions. You can read lot of stuff about this on their website. I wonder though how things are in other cities, if they are facing the same issues.

One another thing great about this protest was that, they ensured that there was no litter. There were no banners which were thrown here and there and also ensured that the regular traffic does not get disturbed.  

Anyways, for now, I will just put down some pictures and really good posters that people came up with on that day.

This guy carried the kid all throughout the walk which was for more than one hour


This sign board is so apt, when you sit to think about it. 

Finally when everyone gathered at the Town Hall

It was great to see quite a number of children join in for the walk

Very cute...

One of hte most innovative banners that I saw.. :)

Another good one

And then finally this really cute kid who was there all throughout shouting and carrying the banner all along her neck, and in the end of protest decided to take little rest.  Really cute...

Related Posts/Links:

Save Bangalore : Road Widening is least intelligent solution

How Effective is Saving Paper?

Protecting Pune Roots: The Tree Act

Of Navaratri and Dandia...

Growing up in my home town, the two festivals that I absolutely used to love is Navratri and Makar sakranthi. Because in these festivals there were no ceremonies to be performed, (well not to be disrespectful of anything, as a teenager I always used to find all the ceremonies very boring).

Navratri specially was very eventful because the festival went on for nine nights. And also during that time we were given permissions to go out at the night with friends. We used to dress up in our best, and gather at one central location. We used to cycle around the town, from one place to another, trying to check out which was the place which had the best music and the best people and then we also sparingly use the money that we used to get on samosas and tea. Seeing all the older guys who used to get their girls on the scooter (bikes were a rarity scooter was the most common), I so much wanted to grow up fast and get to earning something as soon as possible. Generally in those days,  garba used to go on till 4am in the morning, and then we used to cycle back home, and sleepily attend the school next day or bunk. Even teachers did not used to say anything during those nine days, and as such I hardly remember a instance when I had test during that time.   

What is very unique about Navaratri and garba kind of dance is that unlike other forms of dance, which are performed, by individuals or a small group of people, garba/dandia is like performed by thousands at the same time. And still there is not much of chaos, because the beats are fairly simple and as long as you clap at the right time, and move about in the circle you are fine. I remember that there used to two or three such big grounds where there used to be 10-20 such concentric circles, and if you were to lose your friends, somewhere, it was nearly impossible to find. So we used to keep a pre-defined place, that if we were to miss each other we would go back and wait at that place.  

The last time when I attended such a  grand Navratri festival was when i was in 12th. Also during that Navaratri I had a heart break. There used to be this girl in my class whom I had a huge crush on. And during that Navaratri, I spoted her with one guy. Well till earlier years of navrathri she used to come with her girl friends, and it was a thrill to go and talk to her for sometime or even get a chance to dance with her.  But this time around she had come with this guy, I did not know anything about the guy, except for the thing that he possessed a scooter.  

After that year, I went to college and after that have never got the chance to attend this festival in my hometown, so sometime I very much wish to do that again. But as I hear from friends, things have changed now, hometown is not like a small town any more, Most of open spaces have given places to malls and other buildings, instead of free entry now there are passes, there are more strict rules now and all the celebrations have to end by midnight, Cycles have disappeared, and most of the teenagers are so burdened with exams that they cant think of staying awake late at night for Navatri. 

Sometimes I keep wondering, if all the community festivals are disappearing, and giving way to more private and restricted celebration. But then day before yesterday I went to this quiet little gujarati assocation, where they had organized a small garba. There were about 200 odd people there, aunties, uncles, girls, guys, kids.  After a long time I danced and danced, talking with unknown people, exploring new dance steps and trying to recollect all the old dance variations that we used to try, hearing to all those old gujarati tunes,  till 3 am in the morning. Well ofcourse it was not as grand, but something that I would remember for a long time to come. 

If you have never been to any garba/dandia celebration, do try it out. It is unique as compared to any other dance form, and you dont need to know dance and all, it is fairly simple and once you are inside the circle you would move automatically.

 

AIDS awareness rally up to Big Banyan Tree

Sunday morning, instead of lazying around, Mayank literally dragged me in to joining this cycle rally all the way up to The Big Banyan tree organized by Jagruthi. I anyways wanted to go there once, having heard about it so much.

This place was about 25kms from ISCKON. The route was pretty simple, go on chord road all the way till the end where it meets Magadi road, Then go on Magadi road, towards magadi. On that road after about 13kms there is diversion to the left. There is no signboard there, but then most people know about the place, so I guess you would not have trouble locating the which left. The diversion to the left, is a very small beautiful nice lane kind of road.

The place, itself was not that great. There is a park kind of stuff, and inside the park there is this banyan tree. Apparently the original big tree has died and fallen down, and right now there are 5-6, big banyan trees which apparently were the part of the big tree earlier.

For me the fun part of this trip was going on the cycle. Overall it was 50kms, I have never done 50km cycle before on one day. But it was little taxing, especially because the roads were up and down. But forget the tiredness and everything else, the worst thing about this cycles is that your bum pains a lot, so if you ever plan to cycle, get a good cushion seat.

We all were supposed to carry the placard, when we cycle. And it was fun, to see people reading the banner and smiling. My placard was related to safe sex and prevention of AIDS, and most people would read it and giggle. It was fun. There were couple of people who stopped me, to ask me about Jagruthi and that was good to see. But most funny thing was this guy stopping me and asking me if I was distributing free condoms !!

Below is one of the pic which I took with some of the kids who were really fascinated with the cycle. The second pic has the placard that I was carrying all along the way on my cycle.






PS1: Jagruthi is a NGO which works for AIDS awareness. In their Bangalore home they house about 80 children, some of them HIV+, some who have been sexually abused, etc. Jagruthi tries to educate this kids, and also provide them some vocational training.

PS2: Apparently according to the survey of 2007 by National AIDS control Organization there are about 2.5M people living with AIDS in India, which is about 0.36% of total population. Karnataka accounts for about 11.2% of the AIDS cases in India, which is third in list after Maharashtra and Andra Pradesh. It is also very interesting to note that, Mahashtra, AP, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu account for about 60% of the AIDS cases. I was surprised at this stats, because I thought that AIDS was more prevalent in North India, but apparently this does not seem to be true.

PS3: Some of the pictures of Big Banyan Tree place,

One of the trees

All the tree trunks have all kind of graffiti

Another view of the same tree.

India... The land of spiritually

I hate it when I get the middle seat, when traveling on an airplane. Window seat is best, for I still have this child like enthusiasm of looking outside the window, specially during take off and landing, and when spotting any familiar landmark on the ground from the high up gives such a nice feeling. But I hate the middle seat. But middle seat, that was in store for me as I was taking up this flight to Delhi for the start of my trekking trip to Valley of Flowers.

Well, I was almost the last to enter the plane, and as I was grudgingly walking to my seat, 23B, and WoW, WoW, WoW, I could not believe it !! There were two beautiful ladies on A and C. Could I have asked for any better start of my trek holiday.

The Aisle side girl, was a about early twenties aged, she looked fairly cosmopolitan, and could not figure out her origins (north, south, east, west??), she was reading sudha murthy, "Wise and Otherwise". Good for me, that was some subject, which I could talk to no end, about sudha murthy and her NGO stories and so on. As soon as things settled, and air hostess was through with that regulatory speech on safety, I started my attempt to start the conversation. But this girl turned out to be very snorty, I dont know sometimes some people act as if they are carrying the entire burden of universe on their shoulders, and consider it a crime to smile and chat for couple of minutes.

I decided better to leave her alone and turned my attention to this other lady. She was glued to looking outside the window as a five year old, climbing the plane for first time. She was not Indian, was very red in her cheeks and guess she was from Europe,

"Hi", I said,
"Hi",
"Where you from?" I asked,
"Am from Ukraine, earlier part of USSR", she said
"Traveling",
"I come to India searching for spirituality",

WoW, that was great, I had always read on web, people traveling to India for spirituality, but had never personally met one. And then she went on and on and on and on. Telling me about India and how it fascinated her, and how this place was so beautiful and how spirituality was still, a part of everyday life of each Indian. She told me things which I am ashamed to say that I did not know about India. She took out her camera and took me through the photo tour, of her journey, from Manali, to ladakh, to Hampi of temples and monestaries, telling me stories about them.

Listening to her, I was wondering how much do I actually care to know and understand the rich culture that we have. Most of the times, we just discard the stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata as just the work of fiction. Also probably the way they show on TV, with so many arrows disappearing, and more than life figures that really makes it look far from reality. But the entire conversation made me feel very happy, and wanting to learn more.

Conversation also reminded me of reading this research done by some firang (or some website was it, dont remember, Alzheimer I guess ), and his inference was that Ganga is not a natural river. He had done some analysis of the base of lot of rivers and came to conclusion that Ganga is actually a man made river. I guess if you are aware of the story of how God was pleased with Bagirath's penance and he send Ganga down. And in all probability guess Bagirath was a great Engineer and he crafted way of all small streams coming for Himalayas, in to one big man made canal, which we now call Ganga.

Anyways, because of all this interesting conversation flight journey ended in no time, and by the end this snorty girl seemed to be interested in talking, but then it was already midnight and I was lost in thoughts of Ganga, and spirituality guess I was already half way up to my trek. Could there be any better start to trek to himalayas?

PS: Was away on Trekking, and hence the blog was silent.

Making teaching simpler

"Suppose for each 2 idlis (form of Indian bread) that you eat you will get one chocolate, so how many idlis you will have to eat to get five chocolates" asks Uddhav Sir.
Immediately I see kids counting on fingers, and most of them come up with the correct answer 10.

Now the problem is tweaked in many ways, for three choclates how many idlis? and so on, and they start enjoying it.

then finally, at the end of class, almost as after thought, Uddhav sir introduces the notation :
He also introduces the word Ratio.
"

The above was one of the Maths class that I attended in the school called Ananya. This is the school for the street children and I have mentioned it lot of times in my blog. It is not a formal school. All students are divided in to groups, based on their capability, and they just learn. There is no fixed curriculum, when students are perceived as eligible they give the exam through NIOS.

"For teaching multiplication we had done this project, wherein I asked student to measure the distance between our school gate to the shop that is outside from where they get chocolates. They had to measure the distance and paint the sign board on the shop for our school. So they counted the distance in the unit of their footsteps, then they measured their foot steps. And with little help they automatically figured out multiplication. Got a card board, and nicely painted it, with the number." says Shashi Aunty, who runs this full place, "This small project turned a normally boring multiplication class in to something very interesting which involved drawing, painting, and most importantly understanding what is multiplication"

When you think about it there are so many simple ways to teach everyday things to kids. Little more time consuming, but these techniques are more effective in sustaining the interest of students in subject and they appreciate the concept better.

"Most of the conventional schools don't do this kind of education because they don't have time, since they have to finish the curriculum . Here in Ananya there is no curriculum. It is full of fun and project based." adds Uddhav Sir.

On similar lines, long time back I had read this wonderful article called Lockhart's Lament. This article is more related to Maths and here the author laments against the boring form of classroom teaching. There is a very simple example in his essay related to how to calculate aread of triangle, which I really liked. I will quote from there


To calculate area first imagine a triangle inside a rectangular box:


I wonder how much of the box does the triangle takes up? Two-thirds maybe?
I do see something simple and pretty:


If I chop the rectangle into two pieces like this, I can see that each piece is cut diagonally in
half by the sides of the triangle. So there is just as much space inside the triangle as outside.
That means that the triangle must take up exactly half the box!
Hence the area is that of half the rectangle.


That makes it so simple right, area of triangle is equal to half of base and height. It is such an interesting way to teach rather than to mug the formula. The school in which I studied in never taught like this, it was always learning formulas.

The above ideas look so simple, but I am not sure how many schools adopt this. At least the school I studied never taught like this. Though the above ideas look simple, I guess it is difficult to come up with such ideas. Simple in expensive ideas that can teach science, maths etc. I also wonder if there is any resource available on web which have accumulation of such tricks/methods to teach. I have not been very successful at this search, all I have landed upon are some kits for science experiments which are way to expensive to be adopted by most of this NGO schools.

Actually Uddhav Sir, has asked me if I could come up with some ideas specially related to Maths. He has also given me some NIOS textbooks which are equivalent to conventional third and forth grade. But so far I am blank. Let me try and see what I can come up with. Ideas are welcome say for example, to teach division??


Related Articles,
About NIOS : Cant attend regular School, Try Open School
Another blogpost on Ananya: Different Perspective

Nice Sign boards

Sometime back I had visited Butterfly Park in Penang, Malaysia. It was awesome park with lot of butterflies and all kinds of insects, but what impressed me most were the sign boards.

Presence of Mind..

The other day I was going on a bike (as a pillion) on inner ring road, and an speeding red maruti overtaked me and banged in to the Tempo traveler right in front of me, which resulted in tempo traveller overturning and falling in to the ditch next to the road. Further a biker in front of me flew off from his bike and again fell in to the same ditch. All this happened in a just about couple of seconds.

Surprisingly nothing happened to the people in the maruti, except that the front of the car got damaged, but the car was still in driving condition.

After the shock of some ten seconds, I just got off to try to help the biker guy who suffered the biggest injury in this full incident, but by the time there were already lot of people who had started helping. And I realized that I was not doing much of value add there, other than to add more commotion, so I left.

In this confusion the maruti guy vanished, and then I was wondering why did not have the presence of mind to note the number of the speeding maruti. I was someone who had the best view of the full incident. Forget about pen and paper, I could have just taken the photo of the number plate with my camera enabled mobile. But it never occurred to me.

I was wondering if this presence of mind is the inbuilt talent some people have or this is gained by experience? Some people around me are amazingly good at that to do the right things at the right time, wasting no additional time. And seemingly things don't occur to me that fast.

I just hope that the biker guy is safe and surviving.

How to get driving license in Bangalore ?

Lot of people keep asking me how to go about getting driving license in Bangalore, hence I thought of making a full post of this. So here is the procedure for getting DL in Bangalore without giving BRIBES. And trust me it is not all that difficult. (Though this is relevant to Bangalore, guess should apply to rest of the country as well.)


Step1 -> Filling the Learner License Form,

You have to fill the following form. Along with the form you would need the following.
1. Age Proof (Passport, School Certificate, 10-12th Class certificate)
2. Address Proof (House rent agreement, Ration Card)
3. Three Photographs,

Step2 -> Giving the Learner License Test.

After you have filled the form you will have to go to your nearest RTO office, and give the written test. You can find your nearest office here. Ideally you should go sometime at around 10am.

Do the following,
1. Pay the fees at cash counter (30 rupees)
2. Get your documents verified
3. Give the written test.

Nothing is confusing there, once you go there you will be able to figure out.
Written test is itself very simple, there would be 15 multiple choice questions, and passing marks are 10. I guess anyone who has reasonable head on his shoulders should be able to clear it. But in anycase before you go you should take a look at this.

Once you clear the test you should be able to collect your learning license same day after 4:30

I went at 10am, and was able to finish everything by one. I think I went and collected my license later in the day.
Official website for learner's license is this.


Step3 -> Chill out for 30 days.

Step4 -> Getting the permanent License, filling the form and documents.

Well now you will have to fill the following form.

And whatever vehicle that you are carrying, take the following documents,
1. Vehicle Registration certificate
2. Insurance
3. PUC certificate

Step5 -> The D day, before the test,
1. Reach your nearest RTO office by 11
2. Buy a sticker with a big L, "indicating that you are learner" and put it on your vehicle, put on front and back to be safe. Dont forget this else you will not pass the test. You will easily get this sticker at some shop near RTO for 5-10 rupees.
3. Get your documents verified. There is a queue but it gets over very fast. Take the above mentioned documents you should not have any problem.

Step6 -> Giving the driving test.
1. Once you do above step, you will have to give driving test, there would be inspector down, and you will have to queue along with your vehicle. The traffic inspector will brief you about the rules, like giving indicators, and hand signals. And he will ask you to drive. ( a small circle or something)
Caution: He would not fail you until you drive real bad. But please ensure that you give all the right hand signals, very important, signals for left turn, right turn, for stopping and so on. Especially for the left turn, lot of people tend to ignore it.
Also do note that signal for left turn is not showing left hand, it is showing right hand by rotating the right hand by the wrist. This is the most common mistake that people make :)

Once done he will sign your documents saying PASS/FAIL

Step7 -> If you fail :( : (
Dont worry, sometimes it happens, I also failed the first time. My fame to fail was that I did not give hand signal while taking the right turn. Does not matter come next week to give the test, and you will PASS. But it is very unlikely that people fail, out of 4 of us who had gone for the license, I was the only idiot who failed, and it was fully my mistake :)

Step8 -> Yipeeeeeee :)
You can collect your license on the next day. Relief for twenty years.

Important Notes:
1. Second saturday and forth saturday are holidays for RTO so keep that in mind.
2. Never land up in RTO at 12PM types, because then you would get struck waiting in lunch time, and dont blame RTO employees for having lunch, they need to have lunch as much as we do and they dont have the luxury of having biscuits, coffee at will/ or even AC as we all do in our IT companies.
3. Take a book, it always helps.
4. Patience is the key, Smile works, tone of voice matters a lot. People working there are same as our next door neighbors, nice and good.
5. All the time you would be pestered by people who would claim to give you license if you pay them 1000 bucks, but DONT do that.
6. Carrying a pen, gum, stapler etc helps.