The Eyjafjallajokull eruption is the second in less than a month and has seen hundreds of international flights cancelled. These are few photos from various news agency on the volcano eruptions. Please notice the copyright label.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
A useless observation
Every time I think of making an intelligent post, I land up creating a mediocre one. Instead of dreaming, I thought, why not drop all the pretense and accept that all that I can do is adding few bytes of useless text to the blog store? As the thought started sinking, something strange started happening. I was feeling sad [sad that my ego has one less thing to gloat about] but I also felt lighter! My guilt evaporated, expectations vanished, I felt free; I felt free that I can type whatever I like without needing to find any more excuses! Wonderful, isnt't it?
So let me introduce you to one of my brilliant analysis that I did today!
General Electric or GE with $156 billion annual revenue was created by Thomas Alva Edison who also invented the incandescent electric bulb among other stuff. Did you know that he was a school drop-out and had only around two years of formal education?
Steve Jobs, creator of Apple and Pixar, Bill Gates, creator of Microsoft, Larry Elison, founder of Oracle are all dropouts as we all know and today each of them can boast of something that most of the formally educated mass cannot even dream!
Let's look at some other folks who have flourished in areas outside building business empire.
Einstein, the person who rewrote the laws of gravitation was very average in college as per his personal record.
Rabindranath Tagore, the first Nobel laureate from Asia, never had any formal education.
We can find more examples but I suspect they will increase the risk of more people leaving this blog. Instead let me come to the point directly.
My conjecture is 'Formal Education system' always caters to the need for average. People who are exceptionally creative find any formal education system an wastage of their time. Like the folks mentioned above, these people must get out of the education system as soon as possible. Otherwise they risk falling inside the 'average bracket' over time. In other words a country's formal education system should never aspire to create Tagores, Jobs or Edisons. These folks do not need the system. However a nation will progress immensely if they focus on developing 'average' class better. With the world moving to an open and connected market, a state will make faster progress when its 'average' fares better than the average of other states. Let it also be mentioned that averages do not create extra-ordinary history but a nation can merely hope to have the likes of Jobs and Gates. It is only the culture of entrepreneurship, respect for fair competition and a transparent system of communication that cultivate these extraordinary set of talents to grow and the societies that promote those attributes are likely to see extraordinary entrepreneurs like Edison or Jobs.
So let me introduce you to one of my brilliant analysis that I did today!
General Electric or GE with $156 billion annual revenue was created by Thomas Alva Edison who also invented the incandescent electric bulb among other stuff. Did you know that he was a school drop-out and had only around two years of formal education?
Jamsedji Tata, the founder of the great Tata empire is called the father of Indian Industry and in case many of you do not know, he did not go beyond matriculation.
Dhirubhai Ambani the creator of modern-day rags-to-riches story and the founder of Reliance empire, was also a matriculate.
Steve Jobs, creator of Apple and Pixar, Bill Gates, creator of Microsoft, Larry Elison, founder of Oracle are all dropouts as we all know and today each of them can boast of something that most of the formally educated mass cannot even dream!
Let's look at some other folks who have flourished in areas outside building business empire.
Einstein, the person who rewrote the laws of gravitation was very average in college as per his personal record.
Rabindranath Tagore, the first Nobel laureate from Asia, never had any formal education.
We can find more examples but I suspect they will increase the risk of more people leaving this blog. Instead let me come to the point directly.
My conjecture is 'Formal Education system' always caters to the need for average. People who are exceptionally creative find any formal education system an wastage of their time. Like the folks mentioned above, these people must get out of the education system as soon as possible. Otherwise they risk falling inside the 'average bracket' over time. In other words a country's formal education system should never aspire to create Tagores, Jobs or Edisons. These folks do not need the system. However a nation will progress immensely if they focus on developing 'average' class better. With the world moving to an open and connected market, a state will make faster progress when its 'average' fares better than the average of other states. Let it also be mentioned that averages do not create extra-ordinary history but a nation can merely hope to have the likes of Jobs and Gates. It is only the culture of entrepreneurship, respect for fair competition and a transparent system of communication that cultivate these extraordinary set of talents to grow and the societies that promote those attributes are likely to see extraordinary entrepreneurs like Edison or Jobs.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
'Holi' Wishes!
'Holi' to me is a word that always invokes a picture of 'riots of colour', a portrayal of celebration of life, a rapturous joyfulness of nature, a bunch of giggly young faces painted in all different colours and fond memories of cheerful laughters.
Long back, on on such day of Holi, I happened to reach Varanasi. I heard about stories of how Holi is celebrated in that part of world but never pictured me as witnessing it. Unfortunately we were carrying only few clothes [travel light] and were very worried that they will get spoiled. It was almost 30 min. past one in the afternoon. As the train was reaching station, we got few coloured balloon thrown towards the window. We all were thinking whether to get down at all. The huge platform was almost empty when the train stopped. Patches of colour on the walls and long stretch of platform without people running behind each other. That was scary! We almost thought that riot started outside since Varanasi has a sizable Muslim population and skirmishes around celebration of festival used to be common. After a few peeking around, we decided to get out of the station and face whatever comes! It was already 2 PM. As we walked with our baggage, we were surprised that none is noticing us particularly, almost all shops were half-closed, road was checkered with dried colour, thanks to coloured water that was probably splashed on others just few hours back. As we went to the Auto-line, the auto driver greeted us and asked for the address of our destination. His face was fully coloured from ear to ear, we needed a moment to establish the eye-sight, for it was difficult to find the eyes readily. He did not appear to be bothered that we were wearing clean shirts which did not have a single speck of colours. One of us could not hide his curiosity and asked him, "People here do not play colours with outsiders, do they?". The auto driver smiled, "Actually, the celebration is over now. Had your train reached on time, you would not have had the need to ask this questions!"
We, probably for the first time, thanked the Railways authority for running the train late!
Though this is one of the most popular festival in North India, and the origin dates back to time before Christ, it is not clear how it was started. There is a story of Hiranyakashipu and burning of his sister 'Holika' in mythology. It is said that burning of 'Holika' to ashes marks the victory of 'good' over 'evil' and that gets celebrated with Holi. But there are other mythological stories too. The fact is this festival marks the advent of spring and in many parts it is celebrated as festival of spring as the sign of new beginning.
However, many believe that the festival was popularised in the modern format by the Vaishnavites. Vaishnavites celebrate this day also because Lord Chaitanya was born on this day.
Particularly entire Easter India and Uttar Pradesh associate Holi with love stories of Radha and Lord Krishna and that signifies the influence of Vaishnavism.
Whatever be the reason, the Holi celebration touches some fundamental chord of Indian psyche and undoubtedly is one of those events that help urban, highrise-living Indians to connect with each other even for few minutes.
Let me end this post with Raga Vasant which is identified with the joyfulness of spring and in Lt. Amir Khan's voice, the raga sounds magical. Here is the link for the inquisitives.
Happy Holi!
Thursday, 4 February 2010
This, too, will pass!
I was reading a book and chanced upon a story. The story goes like this:
There lived a king who was continuously torn between happiness and despondency. The slightest thing would cause him great upset or provoke an intense reaction and his happiness would quickly turn into disappointment and despair. A time came when the king finally got tired of himself and of life. He sent for a wise man who was heard to be enlightened. When the wise man came, the king said to him, "Can you give me something that will bring balance, serenity and wisdom into my life? I will pay any price for that."
The wise man said, "I may be able to help you. But the price is so great that your entire kingdom would not be sufficient to pay for that. Therefore it will be a gift to you if you will honour it."
A few weeks later the man came and handed the King an ornate box carved in jade. The king opened and found a ring inside with the following letters inscribed on it, " This, too, will pass". The wise man said, "Wear this ring always. whatever happens, good or bad, touch this ring and read the inscription".
The man went away.
Soon an enemy kingdom attacked the King and the king's army though fought bravely, completely lost to the enemy kingdom. The king escaped on his horse and after a long ride, reached a rocky mountain at the sunset. Tired, dejected, humiliated, while he was looking for a cave to hide, he remembered the ring. "This too, will pass" as he read, he thought, "Till yesterday I was the King with so many people serving my most trivial wishes and that passed!"
"This, too, will pass!" as he read, he got back some energy. The distant sound of enemy horses too faded away. He slept well.
In next few weeks, he reorganized his army and with the invigorated army he went back to his kingdom. His army fought and captured almost all his lost territory. The people celebrated and made many praises for him and his ego came back. He felt he is invincible and none will ever defeat him. He was caressing his sword fondly. Eventually his eyes fell on his ring.
"This, too, will pass!" He became humble.
The author sums up: Nonresistance, Non-judgement and non-attachment are the three aspects of true freedom and happiness. Recognizing the ephemeralness of what's happening to us is the key to that. This is the same teaching that Patanjali Yoga sutra and Buddhism's eight-fold way gave to us.
If you ever feel inquisitive of meditation, here is a beautiful page that describes the concept and the process: http://www.meditationiseasy.com/mCorner/techniques/step%20by%20step%20explaination%20of%20vipassana.htm
Finally wishing all of you a very Good Morning, everyday!
Friday, 29 January 2010
Beethoven Symphonies from Karajan
Karajan is known to be the one of most listened conductor for Beethoven's symphonies [you can search the net for his biography]. Twelve years back I tried to buy the whole set of Karazan but didn't have enough money. But now you have youtube to make the music reach everyone! I compiled the most known ones here, hopefully some of them will bring smile to you, especially if you also are like me who cannot afford to buy them.
The beautiful and rich 9th Symphony of Beethoven
Part -1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2AEaQJuKDY
Part -1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Beethoven's 7th Symphony
Beethoven's 5th Symphony
4th Symphony:
3rd Symphony
2nd Symphony
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Travelling Madhyapradesh III: Pachmarhi
When I started writing about Madhaypradesh travel, I thought I would finish it in 3-4 consecutive posts but after the last post a strange [not to me though] lethargy possessed me. I am still possessed but trying with all my might to get out of it. Really, trust me, it needed lot of precious positive energy to come back to this blog!
So, we were in Saachi, right? As I said the road from Bhopal to Saachi is quite pleasant one. The taxi driver, on our way back stopped in the middle. I saw a tea stall on the left. When I looked at him,he showed me the right side of the road where there was a liquour store, type of a shanty to be precise. He said bottles are cheaper here and what is a sunday if one hasn't had a bottle! He offered me to buy few bottles of Rum. I politely declined since I was in no mood to carry bottles. Instead I offered him tea on the roadside joint and after he got his bottles, we had the tea together in that stall. In the morning, on the same day, Sujoy inquired about booking availability in Kanha and Bandhavgar and he got booking in Bandhavgar, one day in the government tourist lodge and the other day in some private resort. Resort? I wondered how far that would be from the Sanctuary but good news is that we have confirmed booking and that also without paying any advance.
So, here goes the plan for our next few days: From Bhopal we will take bus to reach Paachmari, the only hillstation in Madhyapradesh. We will spend few days in Paachmari and from there we will go to Bandhavgar. From Bandhavgar we will go to Jabalpur and start our return journey to Bangalore. We both were happy that we would cover so much of distance of MP with our almost non-existent planning. I told Sujoy, "Don't worry, everything works out for the sincere and courageous!" Thus, started our jouney in the heartland of MP.. we went to the City bus terminus in the early morning, The scheduled departure time is 6 AM. We reached at 5 AM [ we wanted good seats!] but learned that the ticket counter would not open till 6 AM. As we waited in the queue, 6 AM became 7 AM, however we were fed with regular updates on breaking news. Once we heard that Driver is not well because he drank too much last evening and that is the reason for delay. Then more inside information came: the driver started from the Depot 30 min. ago but nobody knows where he is now. Of course there were many variations but all were shared with a cheerful tone by folks; even the passengers, now waiting for more than 3 hours, are not at all angry, rather they are enjoying this lull time, utilizing the time to catch up on the missed spicy tidbits of their family and the City-life. Good people, I thought; they long back realized that time is merely an illusion!
The bus finally reached at 9:30 AM, the driver hurried up everyone, as if it is the passengers who were the folks to be blamed. But there were no mishaps in the long and winding terrain route to Paachmari, the bus finally reached there at the sunset. We hired a trekker to reach the MP tourist lodge that we booked. The lodge had a sprawling area with many trees and many small cottages, one of which we were given to stay.
Before we go further a little bit information of Paachmari would help. Paachmari or pachmarhi is a hill-station in the satpura range and has seen one of the oldest human inhabitation in the history of Indian subcontinent. There are caves that date back longer than formation of the Himalaya and in fact has paintings that are more than 10,000 years old. Today there is an army training camp [locally known as cantonment area] beside being one of the most popular tourist destination in this part of the world. MP tourism has a portal that provides tourism related details about this place, for those who want to visit and here goes the address: http://www.mptourism.com/dest/pachmarhi.html
Besides temples and falls, you have one must-visit place, called Pandava cave. It is told that Pandavas during their exile, stayed there for years, though it was not evident why Pandavas would take so much of hardship when there were so many other caves.
The lodge has a nice restaurant, [well if you do not have a car, this is the only choice you have] but more importantly the restaurant had a great service. As the night came upon, we experienced chilling cold [for the first time we felt cold during this entire visit]. The cottage did not have any heating device, all we had is a blanket for each person. I was waiting to get sleep, hoping that the body will adjust to the temperature. It was not a bad strategy however I needed to wait till the sunrise. In the morning, I discovered that Sujoy went under the mattress to beat the cold. His surviving skill appeared to be more advanced since he did sleep well!
Next night we asked for 3 blanket each.
In the morning we met our neighbour, a bengali couple with two daughters, the younger one is almost a toddler and we observed to our surprise that they actually carried quilt, pillow and blanket with themselves. Very enthusiastic guy, got friendly within no time and we agreed to do the 'sight-seeing' together. The elder girl was studying in eighth standard if I remember correctly. "She is a karate champion; last year she went on a championship tour to Australia", his father proudly announced. I asked her what she did in Australia and she dutifully went through all the details and I was pleased to see that she presented facts without any exaggeration.
I don't remember the name of the temple, but we had to walk in crouched position through a long tunnel before reaching a small cave where we saw a priest offering puja and I was told that this is the place Shiva hid when he was attacked by one of his Asura disciple. Fascinating stories and all of them narrate them as if they have seen them happening in front of them. the day's sightseeing ended with Pandav Cave which I talked about before. There were some engraving, inside those caves, which people claim, were done by Pandavas. I realized that Pandavas must have been prolific travellers since this place was at least 1500 kilometers from their so called birth place and they covered all these distance and many more [they went to Kailash and Tripura, remember?] on feet!
During dinner, our Bengali 'dada' told us his exotic travel stories. He told us how he picked the elusive Brahmakamal with the blessing and guidance of a mysterious Sadhuji. It is one of those once-in-a-lifetime-experience, he explained. Without divine intervention, it appeared that it is impossible to see this flower. It took another six years before I had the chance to have this experience of plucking this flower though I hardly can term it as anything divine.
Highlight of the next day was undoubtedly the cave paintings. These caves are almost unprotected and in an area that is covered inside dense jungle. The guide told us that many times bears or tigers are seen in these areas. These paintings are typically monochrome and has simple structure with many of them are kind of stick and head drawing. But these
are sandstone and therefore subject to natural erosion. It is miracle that they survived for so many years. In very recent times, ASI has tried to put some boards, urging people not to touch these paintings but I was told that most of the damages are caused by the visiting foreigners who taking the advantage of non-existent security, have many times tried to chip away those paintings. It is misfortune that we, Indians do not treasure our own heritage and rather than creating awareness of this, we spend thousands of dollars to see stuff that are not even half as valuable as this. Any other country would have done remarkable things had they have found something like this in their countries.
Enough ranting! I added few photos that I took that time. It appeared to me that hunters stayed in these caves at different times and depending on the times, the complexity in painting increased.
With this let's conclude this post
, will cover the Bandavgar and later experience in my next post, whenever that happens!
So, we were in Saachi, right? As I said the road from Bhopal to Saachi is quite pleasant one. The taxi driver, on our way back stopped in the middle. I saw a tea stall on the left. When I looked at him,he showed me the right side of the road where there was a liquour store, type of a shanty to be precise. He said bottles are cheaper here and what is a sunday if one hasn't had a bottle! He offered me to buy few bottles of Rum. I politely declined since I was in no mood to carry bottles. Instead I offered him tea on the roadside joint and after he got his bottles, we had the tea together in that stall. In the morning, on the same day, Sujoy inquired about booking availability in Kanha and Bandhavgar and he got booking in Bandhavgar, one day in the government tourist lodge and the other day in some private resort. Resort? I wondered how far that would be from the Sanctuary but good news is that we have confirmed booking and that also without paying any advance.
So, here goes the plan for our next few days: From Bhopal we will take bus to reach Paachmari, the only hillstation in Madhyapradesh. We will spend few days in Paachmari and from there we will go to Bandhavgar. From Bandhavgar we will go to Jabalpur and start our return journey to Bangalore. We both were happy that we would cover so much of distance of MP with our almost non-existent planning. I told Sujoy, "Don't worry, everything works out for the sincere and courageous!" Thus, started our jouney in the heartland of MP.. we went to the City bus terminus in the early morning, The scheduled departure time is 6 AM. We reached at 5 AM [ we wanted good seats!] but learned that the ticket counter would not open till 6 AM. As we waited in the queue, 6 AM became 7 AM, however we were fed with regular updates on breaking news. Once we heard that Driver is not well because he drank too much last evening and that is the reason for delay. Then more inside information came: the driver started from the Depot 30 min. ago but nobody knows where he is now. Of course there were many variations but all were shared with a cheerful tone by folks; even the passengers, now waiting for more than 3 hours, are not at all angry, rather they are enjoying this lull time, utilizing the time to catch up on the missed spicy tidbits of their family and the City-life. Good people, I thought; they long back realized that time is merely an illusion!
The bus finally reached at 9:30 AM, the driver hurried up everyone, as if it is the passengers who were the folks to be blamed. But there were no mishaps in the long and winding terrain route to Paachmari, the bus finally reached there at the sunset. We hired a trekker to reach the MP tourist lodge that we booked. The lodge had a sprawling area with many trees and many small cottages, one of which we were given to stay.
Before we go further a little bit information of Paachmari would help. Paachmari or pachmarhi is a hill-station in the satpura range and has seen one of the oldest human inhabitation in the history of Indian subcontinent. There are caves that date back longer than formation of the Himalaya and in fact has paintings that are more than 10,000 years old. Today there is an army training camp [locally known as cantonment area] beside being one of the most popular tourist destination in this part of the world. MP tourism has a portal that provides tourism related details about this place, for those who want to visit and here goes the address: http://www.mptourism.com/dest/pachmarhi.html
Besides temples and falls, you have one must-visit place, called Pandava cave. It is told that Pandavas during their exile, stayed there for years, though it was not evident why Pandavas would take so much of hardship when there were so many other caves.
The lodge has a nice restaurant, [well if you do not have a car, this is the only choice you have] but more importantly the restaurant had a great service. As the night came upon, we experienced chilling cold [for the first time we felt cold during this entire visit]. The cottage did not have any heating device, all we had is a blanket for each person. I was waiting to get sleep, hoping that the body will adjust to the temperature. It was not a bad strategy however I needed to wait till the sunrise. In the morning, I discovered that Sujoy went under the mattress to beat the cold. His surviving skill appeared to be more advanced since he did sleep well!
Next night we asked for 3 blanket each.
In the morning we met our neighbour, a bengali couple with two daughters, the younger one is almost a toddler and we observed to our surprise that they actually carried quilt, pillow and blanket with themselves. Very enthusiastic guy, got friendly within no time and we agreed to do the 'sight-seeing' together. The elder girl was studying in eighth standard if I remember correctly. "She is a karate champion; last year she went on a championship tour to Australia", his father proudly announced. I asked her what she did in Australia and she dutifully went through all the details and I was pleased to see that she presented facts without any exaggeration.
I don't remember the name of the temple, but we had to walk in crouched position through a long tunnel before reaching a small cave where we saw a priest offering puja and I was told that this is the place Shiva hid when he was attacked by one of his Asura disciple. Fascinating stories and all of them narrate them as if they have seen them happening in front of them. the day's sightseeing ended with Pandav Cave which I talked about before. There were some engraving, inside those caves, which people claim, were done by Pandavas. I realized that Pandavas must have been prolific travellers since this place was at least 1500 kilometers from their so called birth place and they covered all these distance and many more [they went to Kailash and Tripura, remember?] on feet!
During dinner, our Bengali 'dada' told us his exotic travel stories. He told us how he picked the elusive Brahmakamal with the blessing and guidance of a mysterious Sadhuji. It is one of those once-in-a-lifetime-experience, he explained. Without divine intervention, it appeared that it is impossible to see this flower. It took another six years before I had the chance to have this experience of plucking this flower though I hardly can term it as anything divine.
Highlight of the next day was undoubtedly the cave paintings. These caves are almost unprotected and in an area that is covered inside dense jungle. The guide told us that many times bears or tigers are seen in these areas. These paintings are typically monochrome and has simple structure with many of them are kind of stick and head drawing. But these
are sandstone and therefore subject to natural erosion. It is miracle that they survived for so many years. In very recent times, ASI has tried to put some boards, urging people not to touch these paintings but I was told that most of the damages are caused by the visiting foreigners who taking the advantage of non-existent security, have many times tried to chip away those paintings. It is misfortune that we, Indians do not treasure our own heritage and rather than creating awareness of this, we spend thousands of dollars to see stuff that are not even half as valuable as this. Any other country would have done remarkable things had they have found something like this in their countries.Enough ranting! I added few photos that I took that time. It appeared to me that hunters stayed in these caves at different times and depending on the times, the complexity in painting increased.
With this let's conclude this post
, will cover the Bandavgar and later experience in my next post, whenever that happens!
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Incredible Madhyapradesh! - continued
I don't remember which train we picked for our onward journey;I think it was one of those that go to Delhi from Bangalore but the journey took around thirty-six hours. We reached to Bhopal after sunset. Yes, I remember it was dark. There wasn't much that happened in the train worth talking about. Well, may be not. We h
ad a family as co-passenger, actually a lady with couple of kids. We bought the daily newspaper from the hawker in the morning. Apart from the update, we thought we could use it as the table-spread for dinner/lunch. The lady had different plan. When she saw us folding the paper after we read through it, she asked for that. 'This village lady can read in English? Education system here is so evolved?',I wondered. As soon as she took the paper, her kids snatched that from her, of course not for reading it. She managed to recover three-fourth of it after some time and she asked us if she could keep it. She reasoned, she wanted to read them undisturbed after reaching home. Being encouraged with her interest in reading, we enthusiastically said yes; not having a paper to clean the seat after lunch was less of an issue. But the surprise came when the lunch trays were delivered. She took the paper that she kept so nicely and spread it for her and her kids. We saw them dirtying the papers and then her cleaning the place with the left-out of the papers and then throwing them out of the window without a glint of remorse.The newspaper served its most useful reason of its existence at that point.
Madhyapradesh was among the poorest of the states with large part of its ares covered under natural forest. Bhopal was a small town and one auto rickshaw came with helping hands , took our bags and delivered us to Hotel Mayura, the ITDC hotel in Bhopal, quite spacious but lacks the glitter of a good hotel. Mostly local politicians filled up the hotels, people coming from other parts of the state to visit the capital, the power centre of politics. People are laid-back but happy; very helpful, candid and unsuspecting. they ask you name and the place where you are coming from but as soon as they hear that you are from different state, their curiosity vanishes.
Saachi is 20 kilometers from Bhopal and you could hire taxi or take the MP tourism bus from the city centre. We thought we could afford the luxury of taxi for such a short journey. Sanchi, before excavation was some local landlord's property and many of the stone pieces were taken by people to their homes before the ASI took the charge of maintaining thhis heritage place. Sanchi was one of the Buddhist university during Mauryan era. It is told that it could take thousand resident scholars and students during its peak time.
The magnificent Sanchi Stupa was built by the Emperor Ashoka during his early days. The architecture still amazes you with its symmetry, its awesome stone-engravings and sculptures on the walls. It is unarguably one of the must-visit and well-kept treasures of ancient India. This post contains some of my shots taken on this place. The last shot shows the expanse of the area and the layout of the main residence area. [the story will continue..]
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