Talk about the tiny powerful point in the vast landscape of country map.
काश मैं समझ पाता,
गुलमोहर पर बैठे,
पंछियों की आवाज,
उनके गीत, उनकी वाणी ।
उनके ही तरह मस्त,
काश वैसे ही दौड़ पाता,
पतली सी टहनियों पर
गिलहरियों के साथ ।
काश मैं समझ पाता,
तितलियों की टोली को,
खिले फुलों से उनकी बातें ,
फिर चुपके से रंग चुराना ।
काश मैं समझ पाता,
वे सब अनजानी बातें,
तैर रही थी पुरवैया में,
बस छु कर निकल गयी ।
From Bangalore, 5 software engineers wished to spend holidays on a hill town, Coorg on a hired Tata Sumo. The hiring charges were Rs. 5.50 / km. In addition they had to pay driver bata per day Rs. 150/- from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm. There is a additional rule that, in case the driver drives the vehicle apart from these hours, Rs. 150/- as additional driver bata will be charged.
Charged with money, spirit and music tracks, it was a memorable journey. Among the hill valleys, over the sharp turns of roads, along with continuous rainy season, the expert driving saved a lot of time and helped everyone to visit maximum number of places, without any scratch of fear or danger.
Towards the end of journey at the Coorge – Buddhist Golden temple, driver was told to park the vehicle. The young chaps visited the temple and returned back to vehicle. They watched the clock. It was 4:15 pm. Reaching Bangalore will take 6 hours. It means, if they did any delay, by the time they will reach, it would have been past 10 o’ clock of night. So they didn’t want to take any chance to spend on overtime driver bata, they may need to pay.
Hence no more shopping or any supposed stoppage.
They entered the Bangalore town at 9:35 pm. Only 25 minutes remained to touch the risk line of 10 pm to save spending on driver’s bata. They discussed themselves in ‘English’, the shortest route, such that everyone can be reached to home within time frame. To them, he seemed to be driving slower to touch the tall needle of clock at 12, before people can reach home.
He sensed their feeling to avoiding touching the 10’o clock risky mark. Now he did not over take other vehicles as he used to do during the trip. The slowed vehicle gave the clear indication of his slowed spirit, which was high when droved the steep heights of slippery roads of Coorg.
Its true, spending of one is the earning of other, mutually interlinked. If it goes smooth, the same money valuation increases.
If, the stagnant money saved, when gives the joyous feeling of earning, gives rise to mutual dissatisfaction. On the other hand, generally, where a driver doesn’t expect the tips, he has a nice way to earn Rs. 150/- as overtime driver bata.
It was 9:55 pm and the last person reached home. The driver was asking for some tips / driver bata. They showed him the time in watch and paid the amount except bata.
They spent Rs. 7,000/- on a really safe and joyful tour and saved Rs. 150/- from driver bata. The 5 persons saved Rs. 30/- each!
He closed the doors of vehicle and was returning home after 3 days.
ISKCON stands for International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The society is the outcome of hard work of 12 years of his divine grace A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada ( Photo left side), established on 11 July 1966, and spread Krishna to the west. I am a regular visitor of the temple for the reason of my own solace out of my consciousness.
ISKCON is just again a vision of globalization of Krishna consciousness, arising from a small place of West Bengal. This has turned out to be a multinational organization/ society. In west Bengal, the Gauriya Math (The Gaurango-Nitai – devotees photo -right) is 
the center of Krishna devotees. And ISKCON is the outgrowth of its sibling which has succeeded with its approach.
Now the good thing, I noticed there while registering for the Yoga retreat course (I shall write more once I attend it), that those great MNC guys coming for solace like me. Most people I see in the MNCs are seeking for some sort of satisfaction in their daily monotonous (strenous) life. The course may be one of such way to find the solution.
ISKCON Bangalore is just not a temple of Hindus, but a society building to spread the basic Indian cultural values all over the world for the consciousness about the Krishna avatar which is the most popular in Indians. The thing which made this organization successful is its youth power. The priests/managers are young; many joined after leaving the lucrative jobs and hone the technical/managerial/literary expertise. Their fund raising efforts are well crafted, and I do support this with active participation.
Not as a devotee of particular religion, but as a unique persona, I do feel that Religion is just not the specific way of remembering the supreme and finding or not finding the shape out of it, it’s the way we try to understand the relations between “I and around”.
Walking on the metro roads, I see a whole variety of things. The things of my concern, which seems to attract my attention most.
It has been more than 3 years that I left pumping irons, that gave me extra pounds. And as a after-effect of leaving the regime, the same 65 kgs got distributed in a bit uneven proportion. Now its again fine to sweat out in a place that is just next to your doorstep :). It takes a lot to comeback to life of your desire with a hope that it must continue at least to remain physically fit.
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Jam1: Traffic ( terrific duty ) police of Bangalore. Many a places they wear monkey type air filters to cover the nose to inhale filtered air ! They are doing the job of maintaining traffic swift on the injured roads with the load of increased number of vehicles, in harmony of carefree cattles.
Jam2: Jam is a Urdu word means liquor. The party invitation again reached me. The menu again contains three types of liqours with a suggestion to add more things. Not only the liquor but the theme of the party matters. Probably the party and the attraction can be avoided as routine work. I prefer remain in home and sip Lassi here :).
———– $ ———–
Ching..ChinG…Ching..ChinG…
I raised my head and the wind – chimes on the fouth floors were singing jingles. The friends who know the sound wave dynamics/ feng sui can better explain why the sound is pleasing and sooths the nerves. Hope my house will also have such chimes hanged around.
Before I proceed, I shall like to share my happiness with all my readers that my last post was true.
The blessings worked well and I am fine with His Grace. 
As per daily routine, I climbed the stairs again. At the intermediate space between the stairs there are big well framed Madhubani paintings in the building. Generally I looked them as any other decoative Madhubani paintings. On day I stopped near to the intermediate area of stairs and tried to look into the Madhubani painting minutely. At the bottom were signature of "Bachcho Devi" in Hindi as if some neo-literate had written in curve handwriting. I was surprised that the paintings, which I used to take granted, were genuine and painted on natural papers.
Great !! The cultural soul of Bihar on sparkling Bangalore walls adding to the beauty of place.
The theme of painting – Maa Durga and Mahisasur Vadha. Its the first time, I was seeing the painting in real and painted with such great craftmanship. Although I know about the paintings and their characteristics. The colours used are probably all natural. Painter has used red, violet , brown, blue and green generously.
I have a lot of praise for Madhubani paintings. Hence my respect to the interior decorator who used these paintings with such a love.
This is the title of one of the famous Bengali song and is based on Kolkata's lady beauty and have a good tune. The literary meaning is “I am Kolakata’s Rosogolla (sweet )”. The famous song sung by Bangla pop icon Usha Uthhup. I have danced on the tune in my childhood. I was humming the same lines on the streets of Kolkata on the human rights day, i.e. yesterday, 10th December. But now a days when I am grown up (still growing), as only humming the song , in Kolkata I saw the infamous Kolkata’s street dwellers, to whom I had seen in the almost same scene 13 years back too, when my Navodaya Vidyalaya arranged the Kolkata trip for us.
The black ladies and gents and skinny children, mud sticking to skin which again sticks to the bones. All their belongings packed in the sacks. The torn black plastic sheets make a roof shape structure for them. Ends of the plastic tent were tied to roadside electric poles and handles of old house doors. In between there is one broken kerosene stove and another black handi over it. Beside them two persons were on the aluminum food plate. The plate filled with rice and few fine meat pieces. The hungry eyes were concentrated on their shares of meat. At afternoon 3 pm, I too did not have my meals. In morning, I had two Kolkata’s rosgollas only and started the day. In hunger anything looks delicious. I was feeling hungry. The aromas of their limited prepared dishes set me tempted. I left the place. At least for my those Indian friends, whose coming generations too will not read my blog ever, I can never sing the song on Kolkata streets anymore. But the town celebrated the Human Right’s Day officially and rosogollas were of course the part of the snacks in between the meetings.
The unconventional trends regarding the dresses, behavior and languages get noticed easily and become objects of criticism by conventionally called cold (not cool) persons. The “cool” persons along with their cronies follow some unconventional trends due to influence of other cultures as experiments or to set themselves apart from the crowd. But sometimes these un-conventions become trend in long run. Dupattaless salwar suits and fitting jeans dresses were not very much popular with our parents or grand parents. Now in the 21st century it does not matter at all when the girls are wearing T-shirts and jeans. It is acceptable now. The accent of talking has also changed. In this cyber-era salutations are summarized by Hi – Hello. The sense of elder – younger is a rare thing. I think we are just the conventional resistors towards the non-conventions, which is taking place in the dress code as well as language. The transformers follow the non – conventions. We have accepted changes in some of the dresses and language compared to the past generations. We are fitting the measurements not measurable by them. So shouldn’t we be prepared to see more transformations in near future in our kids and grand-kids influenced by the powerful media and western culture and which will be beyond our control?
Before today,I have been here several times.
And the among the many unique things here, I have found the traffic so busy because of facilities, you are provided at a single point.You can see hundreds of Yellow taxies, plying on the road.If you know the route the drivers will happily start their faulty meters.If You don’t know the route they will ask whether you will go on meter or shall prefix the fare.This is where a new comer fails to decide, if he/she takes the meter option then be sure the driver will explore a new longer route that day for the destination If u take the second option of prefixing the price the poor traveler will loose the bargain to prefix the fare.
If you are smart and can take the the medium class’s poor vehicle,the local buses.On the buses be prapared to sit on “high rise seats”,nothing to hold for support. Yes if you are standing, you will be provided the facility to hold the bar on the roof. Beware! when the driver will take the sudden brake, you can never guess. Sitting inside the bus you cannot see, what the driver is seeing in front of the bus,how hard you try, I bet!
I cannot miss to describe the Tram , you may call it the mini train on road. But if You are an outsider, you may not know the source and destination.I have travelled in it from MG Road to College street.When I asked for ticket to the contactor or TTE ( I don’t know what they are called) after I have travelled 2 minutes and got struck into the jam for 5 minutes. They did not gave me ticket. Because I had travelled hardly 200 meters. I got down. It was a free trip.
You have another option of autorickshaw but few in numbers.
But if you like to enjoy sitting higher and an inhuman ride. Seek for the rickshaws pulled by some human.I feel more sorry when I see my Bihari brothers have adopted this profession in large number. What a pathetic situation is it? One man sitting like BABU and other person full of sweat and red face pulling the so proud Babu !
Ok you are tired of these transportation on land. Get down the earth of Kolkata, you will find Metro railway. Oh I remember it when I travelled 11 years ago in my Navodaya Vidyalaya sponsored trip. You will feel in a better position now. At least below the earth there are some travel rules existing.
Water tranport on the Hugli river is also nice experience. But If you don’t know to swim the big rivers, be good at putting your legs when you get on it and get down from it.
Otherwise who knows there are professional lifesavers or not!!!!