Indian Tiger RIP

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

As an Indian I am quick to write off a myriad different things about my country,  saying that it won’t work. Today I am writing off our national animal – The Tiger (not to be confused with a certain Tiger woods, who has been a real tiger in bed of late!).

With just 1411 of these wild beasts left alive in India (out of the only 3500 left alive around the globe), this may just be the end of the Tiger. Project Tiger was launched back in 1973 in order to conserve these animals; the numbers increased from 1827 to around 3500 in the 90s. However, the number dwindled to 1411 in the last decade.

Save Our Tigers is a campaign to raise awareness and concern about the state of the national animal. Do visit the website and make your pledge.

Honestly I don’t know whether my blogging about tigers could make a difference; for its just a form of opinionated inaction”

iPad or a bigger iPod touch

Since half of the world and almost all of twitter was in a iPad/iSlate frenzy yesterday; I have decided to bank on the internet trend and get my blog a few hits today

To the uninitiated (really? You haven’t heard of the Apple iPad yet? Wake up!), an Apple iPad is a 9.7″x7″ touch device which is barely half-an-inch thick and allows you to play audio, watch TV, video, run applications off App Store and surf the internet on 3G, cellular networks and of course Wi Fi. It comes in capacities of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and runs a 1 GB processor.

It also boasts of a finger print resistant coating (oh yeah, now i could kill someone with an iPad and not worry about those nasty prints for CSI) on the screen.

Well the price is pretty high $499 to $899

Honestly, I feel that my 16GB iPod touch is just a smaller iPad!! Features aren’t too different, maybe applications later would make all the difference! Carrying the device maybe a pain, afterall it isn’t a netbook and it can’t fit in your pocket.

On the marketing front, Apple got plenty of free Internet Buzz…lucky them! But naming could have been different iPad sounds like a sanitary pad!

Even though it doesn’t have a camera, is over priced, cannot multitask, is just a bigger iPod touch…i’d still want it ‘coz its cool and its from Apple (sigh! I can already head Admiral Ackabar screaming: It’s a  ’Marketing’ trap!)

The Charge of the Life Brigade

Not tho’ the soldiers knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:

The lines above have been taken from Tennyson’s The charge of the Light Brigade. The very same lines are a part of my GTalk status for a few days now. They reflect very well a soldier’s duty to follow orders without questioning them even if these very same orders may lead to their doom!

Most of us admire and envy a soldier’s life filled with discipline,  honor and valor.  A soldier’s life and the life of his fellow men often depends on following orders without fail or deviation. For people like me, who love to question each decision/order in order to understand the big picture; an army career would have been a difficult choice.

But, just putting the same lines in the perspective of life and replacing the decision maker as God, i suddenly feel that unwittingly all of us just ‘do and die’. Whenever unfortunate events occur in our life, people comfort us by telling that something better is in store and that we should not question it for it is the part of God’s big plan.

But what if, Some one had blunder’d, and the big plan is but a false dream? Then of course, we are just doing and dying only to be forgotten in time…

PS-Apologies if this is a very philosophical and confusing post to read!

Mumbai Local

Everyday, my local train leaves Dadar station at 8.41 AM to reach Thane at 9.10 AM Precisely at 9.08, we’d all get up from our seats and lineup on in such a way that the incoming rush at Thane station doesn’t kill us.

As the train draws to a halt, a swarm of screaming people glides in…hurting unsuspecting individuals standing at the door, for they thought that the crowd would allow them to get down first. Its terrifying at times, people can get seriously hurt.

Having lived most of my days in not-so-cluttered environs, I fail to understand why would people risk their lives to reach to their workplaces in time. Is work that important? Probably, India’s Got Talent could pick a few gymnasts from the mumbai local horde!

Okay, having scared the reader enough of the local train crowd, i’d bring back today evening’s incident which made me feel different about the same people who seem so mad each morning.

On my return journey tonite, the train stopped at Vikhroli…a blind man was trying to find his way on the platform…almost bumping at the pillars or the seats. Every now and then a passerby would guide him…and save him from hurting himself. Every few seconds i felt that he might hurt himself…but someone always was around to help him out…While my train started moving on, a passerby just held this man’s walking stick and guided him all the way out.

These are the same people I am afraid of each morning in the train; and now I respect them each day too.
Someone was absolutely correct when he wrote:
Aye dil hai mushkil jeena yahan. Zara hat ke zara bach ke. Ye hai bombay meri jaan

Demise or Dormancy

Hey there,

This blog may not be updated in future or forever…until and if i feel alive again.

Thanks for supporting it and encouraging me.

Ankur

A 6 Day trip to Uttaranchal under 150 US$ – Part I

There are travelers who prefer history, then there are others who like nature and then there are some who like adventure. What if you could roll up all this into a single bundle and dash it with a shoe string budget? Well, you probably would do what we just did last week!

The Plan: Travel Uttarakhand (or Uttaranchal) in its tourist peak season for 6 days and 5 nights by spending no more than US$ 150

The Travelers: Me and a buddy of mine

How did we do it? Read on this 2 part post on how we did it and what all did we see.

It all began when my buddy told me of his visit to India after a long gap of over 2 years. My mind was racing for a small trip in early June where the two of us…me freshly out of Grad school and he a PhD scholar could manage it all within a small tight budget without neglecting basic comforts.

The plan was to visit places like Nainital (yeah you have to because its so popular!), Kausani (because its secluded and enthralling), Ranikhet (I still wonder why!), Almora (deserves more respect than it gets) and Binsar (could we?).  Now with the objective places decided we had two options..either to visit Nainital first and book those quick and fast tours to visit all these or do things at our own pace. We chose the latter.

We started from Lucknow to Lal Kuan in Nainital Express, from Lal Kuan we decided to goto Almora because that was a much more central location to other places like Ranikhet and Kausani. From Lal Kuan we went to the Haldwani bus station, which allowed us to board a KMOU (Kumaon Motor Owners Union) bus to Almora at INR 78.

At Almora we were greeted we stayed at Hotel Shikhar which provided us with a room at INR 500 a night. The first evening at Almora greeted us with rains which restricted our movement to only Naina Devi temple there. However, we did walk around the Mall road and also discovered an excellent cafe in the streets of Lal Bazaar.

Next morning the rains were back after a few hours of Sun, but this time we decided not to stay within the confines of our room. So we ventured out and decided to visit Jageshwar Temples. Now the first problem propped up, there was only one KMOU bus to Jageshwar at 12 noon and the other option was to pay upto INR 800 bucks at book a taxi to this place around 35 kilometers from Almora. We instead opted for a bus to Pitohragarh and get down at Atula which is around 3 kilometers from Jageshwar. What happened next was a true local bus trip with little place to stand or even breathe. 

Nanda Devi Temple, Almora

Jageshwar Temples

Bells at Jhula Devi (Ranikhet)

At Atula the rain Gods decided to greet us with lighter drizzle and plenty of icy breeze…we trekked to Jageshwar temples on foot and enjoyed the mystic beauty of the Pine forest around us. The Jageshwar temples are of both historical and religious significance, a trip to Almora is deemed incomplete if you don’t visit them.

We returned to Almora through a regular Jeep, the last of one the day at around 3.15 pm. One key learning in Kumaon was that most of the public transport between points across towns would stop by the time it shall be 5 pm.

Next morning we visited Ranikhet, that was pretty easy to do by passenger Jeeps from Almora which drop you at Ranikhet within 2 hours at around INR 50 per person.

Ranikhet was much of a disappointment though. However, we did enjoy a trek of almost 12 kilometers to Jhula Devi temple and Chaubattia. On our return to Almora, the clear weather helped us to see the snow capped mountain himalayan mountain range including Nanda Devi peak from the naked eye.

Must visit places around Almora and Ranikhet: Chaubattia, Jageshwar, Naina Devi Temple, Kalika Temple

Check out for the second part of the series…

Adios personal web pages

Geocities shall be closing down this year…it made me also realize that I have recently completed a decade of my being on the Internet.

Here’s the Yahoo! Profile which tells that I am member since April 1999

Back then it was so cool to have a webpage on the Internet, naturally as a 15 year old I was so inclined to have one of my own. The debate used to be between Geocities, Homestead, Tripod or Fortunecity…finally it feels that the days of free web hosting are numbered thanks to Blogging and the likes.

Here you may have a look at my website (if you have the patience to explore you shall find a few gems out there): http://uk.geocities.com/ankur2130

Throwing shoes…the be-coming of the Indian electorate!

It all began when one Iraqi gentleman threw his shoes at Dubya back in 2008. While those shoes went on to become best sellers and a fashion fad elsewhere, we at India learnt the new art of shoe throwing!

The past few weeks have resulted in atleast 3 incidents of shoe throwing at various politicians across the country on issues ranging from corruption, communism to just plain anger. While this trend has resulted in some politicians signing out of the election nominations to restriction on wearing shoes in press conferences.

On the other front certain places have also witnessed public turning violently against the certain candidates holding rallies during their campaigns. Is the the beginning of regular Indians showing their exasperation against lack of governance and utter apathy of the sitting MPs who failed to deliver the goods? Is this the end of us being mere sitting ducks?

By the way, are you voting this year? I am.

 

B Division > Batch 2007 – 2009

Coaxed and threatned here I am penning down on our B Division…aka as padhaku division, boring, nerdy and the uncool or whatever the popular mis-conception  was! So then where do I start, shall I do a Mapara and give a comment of each one of us like he did for C Division? Noo…let Mapara bask in his own glory, because i believe our division was a single organism and not just individuals brought together by the Gods of acads department. 

 

So what was B Division – It is a potpurri of different flavors yet one color. Dahling’s of some teacher’s (read Business Law and OR) and nemesis of others (read HR). Managed to score zero as a group in one silly Eff-See-Que of RM, and managed to bail ourselves out of it too.  Certain old men give new dimesions to how HR was studied, and then there were others(certain loud mouths) who beat the CLO in explaining HR concepts. Were to the forefront of giving timely submissions and also about not caring for Foundation exams (Oh yes! some of us have still not appeared for a few of those!). 

 

Singles, engaged, committed and married you name it and we have them…oh yes some of us even changed these stages while being a part of the gang. Blessed with singers, and guitarists we even have people who could put Janice(remember F.R.I.E.N.D.S) to shame. College toppers to exam floppers, from the tallest of the tall to the shortest of them all. From pure Punjabi fun to Man madrasa, from pernnial hard workers to sleephyheads(favorites of Pathak Sir) we have seen it and done it all. We have had cake officers to certain non resident students surprising even Prantosh.

 

…but then how did this cacophony of contradictions ended up giving perfect music? I’ll never know, sometimes things just given an impression of being impossible…but then for B division things have always been possimpible!

Lifeless existence

I drove and I drove…with these words ringing in my ears. Here they are:

The tears dry up…eventually,
The soft heart hardens and crumbles up like bread
What is now left is a live body with a lifeless existence..

 

I really don’t know the context, but these words just kept hitting my head.