Thursday, June 24, 2004

Goodbye Delhi

Time has come to say goodbye to Delhi. It has been a year since I came to Delhi and now saying goodbye is painfull. Delhi is a paradise for people who love winter and travelling.

My next destination is Hyderabad and I am all set to explore the city.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

Century

After 8 months of writing, my previous update was the hundredth blog. I should first thank Arun Chandrasekar for motivating me to start something like this and thanks to everyone who read this blog. Most of these blogs were what I read, see and think, so if it has hurt anyone by any means kindly forgive me, but do come back and leave your comments.

Thank you all and have a great day.
Indian Movies and Sex

After movies like Kamasutra, Fire and Earth 1947 now you can see movies like Boom that portrait about a callboy, followed by the most controversial movie Girlfriend that is about lesbian. Once again the people who call themselves as cultural police has come to the streets to protest against the screening of the movie. The land which gave us the world famous Kamasutra and Khajuraho which currently has 20 temples depicts around 64000 sculptures about sex. Are these cultural police going to demolish these things also saying that this is against our culture?

People can say that movies should show about sex but not sex between lesbians and gays, which is not good for the society. But one can see sculptures of the above type as a part of the temples in Khajuraho.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Universites in India

Will any one belive that India has 8407 Universities, followed by US with 5758 and Argentina with 1705.
Yahoo Mail

I have 2 email ids in Yahoo. One in India Yahoo and the other on the US Yahoo. Today when I logged on to the US Yahoo I was astonished to see that they have increased the mailbox size from 4MB to 100MB. When is this going to happen on the other sites of Yahoo?

Monday, June 14, 2004

Expensive cities

While Tokyo is still ahead of the list followed by London and Moscow, our cities like Mumbai and New Delhi are cheaper than cities of China, Srilanka and Bangladesh. As per the Indian survey the best and cost effective city in India is Hyderabad, that is the reason I am moving to Hyderabad.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

People & Places - Part II

Our guides were our chefs who prepared simple and tasty food. The menu is always Rice, Dal, Roti and Vegetable. One should appreciate the efficiency of these guys, during the preparation of food. They use to carry only some plates, 2 bowls and some tumblers, with this minimal vessel they use to prepare food. One thing can be noticed is that these are not washed by water, but by sand. As a city dweller we will find this odd, but due to heat of the sand, I think this is more hygienic than washing it by water. Also if every time they have to wash things with water then they have to walk 10kms back to the well to get water. This area is survived without rain for the past four years.

In this region there are around 20-30 villages, and each village is situated at a distance of 10 to 15kms. Each village has a drinking water well near by, which is around 2kms. I had the chance to see the water, it was actually brown in color, they draw the water, keep it for a day so that the dust settles down and then they distill it and use for drinking. These villages do business not much with money, but it is through give and take. Every four to five villages have a hospital and the nearby big hospital is 50Kms away with very minimal equipments. In most of the villages there is still no power supply. The relationship is worse between Hindus and Muslims when they are inside the village, but when they are outside the village they are like brothers. It is been told that if either a Hindu or a Muslim tries to sneak into the others territory, the intruders eyes, hands and legs could be cut off.

For the past 50yrs our great politicians have been promising these people that they would provide electricity, water and other basic needs. But the villages near Jaisalmer are lucky enough to get at least electricity and water. The remaining villages are still in the same state. For people over here getting a loan of 10k from a bank is like getting water. After bribing all the people in the bank and outside these people may get 5k for a loan of 10k, and still pay the interest and principal for the 10k.

But still these people love India.
Olympic Torch

This can happen only in India I think, how can the Olympic Association of India select filmstars to carry the Olympic torch, when there are lots of sports person. What I feel this is a disgrace to OAI, and they have not respected the feelings of sports person.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

People & Places

After coming to New Delhi, I had the chance to visit few places and people. It is always fascinating to know the life style of different people at different places. After my visit to Jaisalmer, for a very long time I wanted to write about the life style of desert.

Everyone knows that life in a desert is not easy due to high temperature, water scarcity and rough terrain. During my visit to Jaisalmer we had planned to stay 2days and 1 night in the sand dunes and the guides accompanied us. We had tow guides and one was married and the other was not. We asked the second guy why was he not married and was astonished by his answer. It seems in their caste he has to give 2lakhs as a dowry to marry a woman. Four years back he was taking care a herd of sheep in the desert, due to lack of pasture and rain all the sheep died of starvation and disease. Now he is paid Rs. 500/- every month as salary for being a guide. He is 24 and survived by his parents. The question out here is how many years is it going to take for him to collect 2lakhs and get married.

The other guy is married and survived by his wife and 5 kids (2 boys and 3 girls). The other information we got about marriage was, in their caste always the bride will be elder than the bridegroom. We asked what was the reason; he simply told it is for family planning. We are talking about an age difference of 10 to 14 yrs. And normally the marriages will happen when the bridegroom is at 12 or 13 and the bride is at 26 or 27. It also seems for a hospital they have to go minimum 50kms either on foot or camel driven cart.

Both these guys have studied up till10std, which is considered as the highest education in their village. Also the schools are during only August to March, because after March it is very hot and teachers do not turn up. For these 5months kids are all alone while their parents go in search of food and some firewood, which ends up they go begging for pens, chocolates and rupees from the tourist who rarely visit these places.

More to come...

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Day of The Venus

After 122yrs today is the day for the Venus to show herself to the people of Earth. I had the glimpse of Venus only through the TV and Internet, due to bad climate in Delhi. I should thank Doordarshan for this spectacular event, telecasted by them.

Friday, June 04, 2004

Taxation

The propasal of the new Tax by the current government looks like a nightmare. Read on...

Thursday, June 03, 2004

Gangothri Photos

I have uploaded some of the Gangothri Photos into my webshots photo community.
Truth Behind Sonia's Sacrifice

The President is said to have informed her that according to Section 5 of the Citizenship Act of 1955, she has no right to assume the office of the Prime Minister of India and that he was seeking the advice of the Supreme Court on this issue.

Section 5 of the Citizenship Act of 1955 clearly says the rights and privileges allowed to foreigners who become citizens by application (not by birth) will only be those as are granted to Indians in the country of the concerned person's origin (in this case Italy). Which means that since an Indian cannot be the PM of Italy, even if he is granted Italian citizenship, then Indian law says that an Italian who is granted Indian citizenship cannot be PM of India. Period. The Citizenship Act, 1955 is available for all to read at this link

The President reportedly told Sonia that he had to ascertain the legal position in this matter as there was no confirmation that all the rights and privileges granted to persons of Italian origin are reciprocated by Italy in the case of Indians who become citizens of that country.

Sonia is said to have decided not to take the risk after the President's briefing. It should also be noted that the President, in his letter on Monday, invited her only to discuss assuming the post of Prime Minister, and not to assume office.

That was the reason why Sonia made such a "huge sacrifice" after "listening to her inner voice." Just two days ago she did not refuse when her party elected her the Leader of her party. Thereafter she said that the leader of the single largest party should, in her opinion, be the next Prime Minister. And two days later suddenly an inner voice told her to make a tamasha of a sacrifice. Maybe the inner voice sounded like the booming APJ Abdul Kalam, a true Indian.

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Trip to Gangothri-Gomukh

The 17hr drive from Delhi to Gangothri and 6hrs of walk from Gangothri to Gomukh to see what is called the source of Ganga is real worth it. The meaning of Gomukh is mouth of a Cow. And it is true that it looks more or less like the mouth of a Cow. There is only from point the water is gushing out and one can see small streams of water from the mountain. For a person who has not seen it will find it difficult to believe that the whole mountain is Ice and only Ice. From far it looks like a normal mountain in brown color, everyone thinks it is same as the other mountains. But a closer look reveals that the whole mountain is Ice.

Even though the path from Gangothri to Gomukh is tiring, the view of the valley, the snow covered mountain peak and the waterfalls are a breath taking moments.