Madras to Bombay

During my school days I always wanted to visit Bombay, I also did but mostlly as a tourist. Today I am here in Bombay to spend few weeks with my dad and brother, now when I look back into those days…. the way I used to gaze at every single thing in the city with an excitement, I laugh at myself today…. Damn I have grown! Well Bombay has not changed, I have.

Madras is a land of ‘The Best Things’ – Well, everyone would say so about their land too; but Madras is always special.

Let me walk through a small comparison...

First thing I noticed entering the city, was the ambience outside the airport; it was so annoying to see so many cars, autos, buses, being clamped and congested. The road which leads to the main roads were crappy with the so called tall buildings alongside which look greyed out and the half constructed buildings drenched in rains. I was under the impression that Madras airport is the one with the least looks but I really regret for my thought “Madras is heaven”, the road which leads to the main roads into the city are huge and classy. There is nothing to complain about the view of the city from airport; it is definitely ‘Love at first sight’

In Bombay, which is a metro too, has majority of people speaking either in Marathi or Hindi or some other language and have little knowledge in English, it was so hard for a person like me who knows broken Hindi but still want the local people’s help. It is damn hard - whoever comes to Bombay should know basic Hindi at least to 20% or you will need a English to Hindi translation book or a person with you who knows both English and Hindi else you will be dumb and showing hands and suffering. Come to Madras, even the auto guys, bus drivers, conductors, flower vendor, vegetable vendor, porter, taxi drivers, restaurant guys, small road side shops and everyone in the city will guide you even if you speak in English, though not in great English but in a much understandable way… for sure language is no problem in Madras.

Festivals are amazing in Bombay, at this time; Visarjan is like the best festival one could watch and enjoy, I must admit that every state must learn from Bombay when it comes to celebrating festivals. Visarjan – immersion of Lord Ganesha on the 10^th day from the start of Vinayaka Chaturthi. 10^th day hungama is too huge; I have never seen such huge idol of Lord Ganesha in streets and people singing ‘Ganapathi bapa moriya’ in loud voices. It was fabulous with lots of colours, dance, sweets, drums and lots more.. Celebrations were throughout the night, it was splendid. Any person who comes to Bombay cannot resist this time of the year. Be it Navaratri and Diwali are back to back festivals of enjoyment, I can’t forget the music which kept rolling into my ears for straight 24 hrs. Dance and music are predominet for these people and here I see Punjabi, Gujarati, Jains, Tamils and many more mingle in one single place and tap their feet together. It was such a lovely sight to see all different cultures mingling. Hands down Bombay rules festivals. BUT sometimes there are so many mishaps while parading en route to sea for immersion, yet this happens everytime when there is a huge crowd, keeping all the negatives aside, Bombay is lovely in nights, the shops where they make hot jelebies, samosas, vada pav, oops I almost forgot pani poori, trust me, I have never tasted the most tangiest and yummiest pani poori anywhere in the world except in this place. Bombay is good for all types of eating stuff, you name it you have!! It’s right across the street.

I must also say rains in Bombay are heavenly; especially for any person who travels from Madras, not that we hardly see rain, but here its most nice, chilly, soothing and also calm. Sometimes rains are disturbing but most of the times it’s pleasant and cheerful.

Temples…. Everyone would expect me to say Mahalakshmi temple and Prabhadevi Siddivinayak temple are the best ones… (yes they are… ) however … Sriradi Sai Baba temples are THE BEST in Bombay. Even a small sriradi temple will look beautiful and neat. Speaking about Mahalakshmi temple, the road which leads to the temple is a real mess, people who come from south will surely not like the path leading to the temple. The main Mandir looks veryyyy beautiful with nice flooring and small small sweet stalls. Behind the Mandir there is a huge open space which gives the view of the Arabian sea, it is a must see sight. Breeze would take us to a different world with Mandir bells tingling along with the smell of agarpathi. Aaaaahhhh divine… the rocks behind the temple is always wet as the sea water splashes giving it an antique texture.

Next temple which I visited was Mumbadevi temple in Zaveri bazaar… yes the same place where there was a blast few weeks before my arrival… until I arrived to that temple I dint know it’s in Zaveri….OMG… I must thank GOD for bringing me home safe. My heart was beating higher and higher as I was nearing the temple, the reason is the whole of Zaveri bazaar is filled with Muslim population. I quickly got reminded of hey ram movie seeing that pace. Zaveri chowk the sickest place ever… yuckkkkkkkkk to the core… I really don’t know how they are maintaining a temple there. It is such a sensitive area; a small spark is enough to create so many probs.

On the other hand I was amazed when I went to Narashimar temple at chembur, I thought I am at Madras. The place has a huge population of tamizhs, it felt lovely to hear tamil archanai…. Waare wahh… Tamizh is beautiful. Also Murugan temple which is few streets away from Narashimar temple was much more beautiful with so many steps leading to the main sanctam. ‘Azhagu’ is the word seeing that temple.

Speaking about malls - in Bombay they are quiet good, the extravaganza is more.. but the quality and collections are all the same in every mall.. Just that there are many malls. Yet, I still feel Madras has equally best malls and the best shops. Nevertheless I love shopping for earrings in any place.

So to conclude, Chennai (yes the first time I am typing this) my gorgeous Madras is my home whatsoever is THE BEST and Mumbai, is good in its own way, just that it should look more high class for being a huge business hub for India and standing as an important metro.

I really miss living in Mumbai… I boarded the fight staring at the view of the city thinking one day I will live in this city which I treasured and enjoyed inch by inch… However........
“Sowgame endralum adhu nammura pola varuma” :)

Arun Shourie addressed on ‘Real Significance of Scams’

It was a cloudy Saturday morning with chill breeze striking my face and I was in 29c bus to reach chetpet for a speech addressed by Mr. Arun Shourie, Journalist, author and former union minister and Mr. Vittal former central vigilance commissioner on the topic ‘Real Significance of Scams’ at chinmaya heritage centre organised by Nani Palkhivala foundation. I knew the speech is going to be amazing and most interesting. Since my company is doing PR for Nani Palkhivala foundation i was the PR executive assigned for this event. This is my first political event. i was under the impression that very young guns would be seen in the crowd, but to my surprise i saw so many old grandfathers and grandmothers walking up to floors to listen to the speech. The crowd had gathering of retired IAS, IPS, Advocates etc, mostly above 60’s. Their involvement in this speech made me listen to the speech. As so many people came via lift I saw Mr. Arun Shourie climbing the stairs with a beaming smile at me in reception and proceeded to the hall...

People were still coming in groups; never i have heard any political speech, i was so anxious to know what he is going to speak. Usually for any event media would reach little late or sometimes never turn up, but this time i saw herds of media people specially TV channels and almost all the publications signing the media registration. My curiosity went sky high.

After all the registrations i finally entered the hall. Mr.VIttal was speaking about the scams. I am no great in understanding politics ever. For that fact i used to sulk in college to study politics and write an exam for 100 marks (which was totally a disaster) one good thing about my college days is that i got the habit of taking running notes whenever someone addresses the gathering. The same thing happened here also.

The main topic discussed here was the 2G spectrum scam. (1.76 crore scam by RAJA)

Well coming to the point Mr. Vittal made few statements which was very much informative... i would like to jot them as points.

• He said time has come to expose those who give bribe rather than those who receive them.
• 1961 of dowry act says both the giver and the taker are found guilty; the same thing could be done for scams also. Or take actions like the outcomes of chandrawadhana commission.
• Today the conviction rate of punishment in court is only 6% which means 94% of people get escaped.
• In our country we make laws with huge loopholes.
• When there can be law breakers? And why not law makers?
• Why should we have tainted ministers?
• This topic of ‘Real Significance of Scams ‘shows how systematically we are fooled by our constitution.
• In Hong Kong when they had corruption they had ICAC – Independent commission against corruption, which was aimed to clean up endemic corruption in the many departments of the Hong Kong Government through law enforcement, prevention and community education. The ICAC is headed by the Commissioner. Due to which the corruption rate got reduced.
• To see a change in our country there are two T’s important to fight corruption

1. TINA factor (There is no other alternative) – This would ensure guilty and punishment is given.

2.Transparency – this would ensure prevention of corruption

• CVC, CAG, Election commission and Judiciary should bring the TINA factor.

Then comes Mr. Arun Shourie he opened the topic by what Mr. Vittal had said. I will jot them as points too

• Mr. Vittal said there are huge loopholes in our constitution but I don’t see any Loops I see huge holes instead.
• Corruption is like a cancer in our country it should be killed soon else it would spread so much.
• He mentioned that if ministers are corrupt their assistants would do paper work for the ministers and later for them too, this would develop and corruption level goes high.
• He said Nira Radia is a great contribution to the society where there is an interlocking web of mutual complexity which is exposed through the record conversations
• Today reforms are becoming impossible and PM is operating in a system where he is unable to improve reforms. Also added that PM knew about these scams before but did nothing for about 2years.
• Further he said we should be very active else a corrupt person will rely on our laziness by not looking into the facts.
• There should not be any adjournments by court for any scams else they would keep piling and over a period of time people would forget it and new scam would come up.
• Two punishments should be given

1.Physical incarnation – should be put in jail

2.Barred from public life for life.

• He said not to believe everyone is a crook and do not get deflected by facts
• Today most honest people are being under investigation for scams, advice to those people would be, don’t feel bad because it is your duty to help the country
• Advice to Raja – stop following my footsteps and become a approver, even your leaders have said that a single person is not involved in any scam.

Well there the speech ends. These are the few important points i could make note of. Once the speech got over every television media circled Mr. Shourie and asked zillion questions like are you ready to face the CBI, was your ministry clean when you were union minister and all that. He had answered positively for those questions.

What i was amazed was i had seen media being gathered to one person only in TV.. When I saw so many of them climbing up to the stage and asking question i was amazed. I was standing much interested in knowing what Mr. Shourie is speaking rather than the media crowd, so i was rounding that small speech trying to listen sharp. I felt happy sharing the same stage of Mr. Arun Shourie.

That day event was so damn educative. I had zero knowledge in politics before now it has grown a little; I hope I would follow about this spectrum scam if not other scams...

Old is Gold - postal mails to emails

I appreciate technology, it has definitely made life lots easier and comfortable... people are able to communicate through video chats, emails, sms, phones and lots more, but even now one thing I miss are the letters being posted.

Going back in time is always really nostalgic, I recall the days where my thatha (Grandfather) use to write letters to my mother and at the end of the letter he used to write for me too. It will be a small paragraph still I would be excited to read them... I used to get greeting cards from grandparents for my birthdays. During those days these never mattered so much for me, yet at bottom of my heart I would love those cards and letters addressed to me.

There are few letters which my mother used to preserve; sometimes I read them which make me miss those beautiful communications. I still remember fetching inland letters from the post box, baffling how to open them and hand it over to my mother. Once I tore it in a wrong direction and got scoldings also... happy days... life was much simple then.

In today’s world it’s very hard to have a postal communication especially for the time it takes to reach us. I almost forgot how to open an inland letter now. Emails do has options to save the conversations and stuff, but I personally feel that nothing can match to that of seeing your loved one’s handwriting in the letter and reading their words after years particularly when the letter looks fade and dull. Only thing which can be done is to cherish those yester year modes of communications.

Old is absolutely Gold... the much proven incident in everyone's life.

My sudden craving for paratha

We all crave for many things in life; I bet every human being would dream about hogging their favourite food especially when they don’t have access to it at that moment. The same sort of thing happened to me during two days before diwali. I dreamt of having nice aalo paratha that too at middle of work right after my lunch. I looked out of the window and saw herds of people walking here n there with their diwali goodies, I was so sure that I could never sneak between this mad crowd for one paratha.

I really had to push time till evening and divert my mind to something else, but somehow I end up in munching paratha only. I imagined how I would literally hog on them when i get them, but I could only imagine and never eat.

I was completely disappointed and tried to forget about my craving and started to proceed towards bus stand from work. I made up my mind that I would have paratha the next day whatsoever.... just then i was fixing my mind one singh was sitting in bus talking about how to make paratha to someone over phone. I was like omg.... stop this, already I am going mad and this fellow is adding fuel to fire.

I went and stood away from that conversation so that I don’t hear him, but hard luck he was heard all over the bus may be the next bus too.. Sigh.... with all longing I got down at adyar and started to walk towards besi road to reach home, still I was figuring out a chance to have paratha somewhere. I crossed adyar bakery, outside that place there was a stick board saying all grand sweets products.... Before I finished reading it I knew I am going to have something if not paratha. The first menu in the list said aalo paratha, my eyes beamed like never before with a wide smile. I happily ordered... but the guy said its over and aalo gobi paratha is only available (as if i care) I nodded miming give whatever man, I am craving since this noon...

Hot Hot paratha with gobi side dish came, I hogged on to yummy paratha happily without thinking about anything and walked home briskly as if I achieved something.

At times craving for food is a nice feeling that too when you find what you wished for is right next to you, the feel is outstanding. That evening was satisfactory !!

Realised not a student anymore !

My student life is over. I realised it in a much better way when government announced off for schools and colleges due to 'Jal' cyclone. I am recalling the days where I use to wake up early on a Monday morning for college and news will be running behind the ‘getting ready process’… just then I brush my teeth watching the news in tv, the lady would announce, TN govt announced off for schools and colleges… there is no better news than this that too on a Monday morning. I brush my teeth and blissfully go back to sleep. It feels like I have achieved something, it sounds so stupid but holiday on a Monday is the best ever news in the whole world being a student. That’s when our chain sms starts to all our friends.. “hey its off…we don’t have college for 2 more days”...I miss those texts.

But the funny part is the next two days sun will beam all way to glory. haha.. thats when our movie plans, besi meets will be made... Those days are heaven.

Today I am not a student anymore. I have to work, I always wonder why government never announces such kind of holidays for working people as well. Sigh… student life is ever green whatsoever...

What is professionalism?

What is professionalism? A person who is skilled in his work and does his job perfectly to best of his knowledge. But today software engineers and doctors alone are termed professionals which is unfair.

Three days back road constructing labours had come to a street opposite to my flat. The road was bad due to rains and had so many ridges. It looked like people are climbing on the road and walking and vehicles use to go zig zag became of the bumpy surface.

One fine morning ultra tech road machine had come and labours were making the tar road as cement road, so that the further rains would not spoil the land for some more time. Since it’s going to be cement it needs to dry for one whole day .The labours arrived early morning around six and informed all the residents on the street not to walk on the cement until it dries and if anyone needs to leave for office use some fence or (my) flat’s back gate to go out. Many residents knew that news and started early to office and few jumped behind my flat and went out.

The labours started to pour cement on the ground and neatly leveled them on the road and made it look like school basket ball ground. It really looked nice to see them making it level, even I felt like leveling it. It looked like art for me. So within an hour they were completing the road and from my balcony the road appeared fresh and orderly.

Just then workmen finished and started, one girl did not know how to cross the road with her scooty. She was blinking for sometime not knowing she can go using the back entrance of my apartment. Out of her mind she drove over the wet cement, the nice tidy road had a thick tyre mark throughout the road. Other residents were so much frustrated seeing the road getting damaged again. More than feeling for the look of the road we all were worried about the effort put by the labours. It looked like a black spot on a white paper. For one hour these labours wore a cement guard in their feet and made it look good, within a fraction of seconds it looked all clumsy.

One of the labour who made the road could not stand seeing the road broken because of tyre, immediately he took the level board and started to patch up the mess. It’s not at all necessary for him to do this; once his work is done he could have happily left home. But he did not, he did not complain or utter a word seeing the mess, he quietly started to level the road again when other labours dint bother to help him. To add more irritation a dog started to run on the wet cement, now the dog’s foot prints were there. Everyone screamed looking at it (the scream was like a sixer hit by sachin), still this particular person did not bother and patiently made sure there are no sledges on the road after leveling the cement. This is also called as professionalism and he is a professional.

If he had thought that it’s not his problem to repair the mess created by someone the road would look much pitiable after the cement gets dried. Since it’s all properly leveled now, the road looks neat and tidy.

This proves that "professionalism is there in every level". It does not matter whether you are engineer, doctor, journalist, painter, architect, drivers, even homemaker for that matter etc. If a person has a determination and dedication towards their work and wants their work to look perfect, then everyone in this world are professionals irrespective of any job they do.

Winnie the pooh - My favorite bear :)

I never know to appreciate cartoons, recently hmmm may about two years I started to adore 'Winnie the pooh'. I never liked any cartoon face like the Winnie's. It looks cute than the other bears. I like the colour combination of it. Yellow and red - looks very bright and attractive. It seems Winnie the pooh was first made or given the name as 'Winnie the pooh' on October 14^th 1926 at London. I don’t remember seeing any of the pooh’s during my childhood days, may be it did not come to India. I am not sure of it though.

I feel so strange to buy a toy at this age. Yet, I like to own as many Winnie’s as possible. I started to collect every material which has pooh’s picture on it. I feel it’s not too late to buy. Crazy!! I think there are many people out there who love toys even though they are out of their childhood. I see many stuffed toys at shops but even now nothing strikes me as the pooh doll which will always be placed at one end of the corner or at the bottom.

Thanks to A A Milne who created this fictional bear. Loving it so much :) :)