Today on 21st Dec 2010, I have introduced somebody in my life. It is my new Royal Enfield Thunderbird. I had been waiting for this moment for 5 long months. I spent an impatient day in office fretting that the time was not passing quickly enough. At the last the long awaited call from the dealer came confirming that I can come for the delivery. The wait finally got over on this cold evening and I found myself in front of this gleaming monster of a bike. No amount of drooling over other Thunderbird bikes had prepared me for the ownership of one. It was love at first sight. The moment I pressed the starter button, the machine roared to life and I knew that I was hooked for life. With my love(my wife) astride on the bike with me, I felt on the top of the world..ready to rule the streets.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
It has been a really long time since I have written on my page. Partly due to work load and party due to sheer laziness after the work load reduced. Things are not helped by the fact that I have taken to writing a diary. It is not a diary in the purest sense that I note down what happens in day. It is rather a continuation of the urge that drove me to write a blog on the items that I desired. But today as I sit in the office early in the morning attending a call that I need not attend, I have this overwhelming itch to put some words onto my blog instead of the diary that I habitually carry around. To be fair unlike other times, I don’t have any particular topics to talk about or some discussion close to my heart. Today I just want to type few sentences and then watch them reflect on my page. My page has been static for nearly 15 months now. I feel sad and sometimes, if I allow myself, a little guilty. Perhaps putting down few lines today is a way to assuage that feeling. So here goes my first post of the year and most probably the last. Though I will try very hard not to make it the last.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Sounds of Ganesha
Today is "Anant Chaturdashi", the last day of the Ganesh festival. If you are a native to Pune and happen to live near Peth areas, then you would probably understand the joys (or pains depending on how close you are to those mountainous Dolby speakers) of this festival. The immersion parade is a culmination of the 10 days of the festival and it seems that the whole of Pune flocks to the roads to see this magnificent procession.
When I was a school going kid(I am talking about really ancient times) we used to celebrate Ganesh festival in the colony that I used to live in. Many a times I also used to participate in the procession and share in the wonderful experiences. But processions rarely bothered with the song and dance routine that is more of a norm these days. Then, almost exclusively it used to be "lezim" and "dhol" for all the Ganesh Mandals. But times have changed and so have the tastes of the people. The "lezims" and "dhol" still feature, but item numbers rule the roost in the processions these days. Not that I am complaining, since I can still see the same fervour in people who take part in these processions today. The only difference is in the sounds that we hear.
Now I enjoy the processions from the comfort of the balcony when they pass by. Sometimes I wonder how will it be when I grow old. But then I guess that it will still be as good as it is now, the same as it was when I was just a school going kid. The only difference would be the sounds of Ganesha...
When I was a school going kid(I am talking about really ancient times) we used to celebrate Ganesh festival in the colony that I used to live in. Many a times I also used to participate in the procession and share in the wonderful experiences. But processions rarely bothered with the song and dance routine that is more of a norm these days. Then, almost exclusively it used to be "lezim" and "dhol" for all the Ganesh Mandals. But times have changed and so have the tastes of the people. The "lezims" and "dhol" still feature, but item numbers rule the roost in the processions these days. Not that I am complaining, since I can still see the same fervour in people who take part in these processions today. The only difference is in the sounds that we hear.
Now I enjoy the processions from the comfort of the balcony when they pass by. Sometimes I wonder how will it be when I grow old. But then I guess that it will still be as good as it is now, the same as it was when I was just a school going kid. The only difference would be the sounds of Ganesha...
Potli Baba Ki - Continues
It has been a very long time since the last post...
But all these days the story telling has continued. And it has actually been a tough time..thanks to my kid as always. Last time I mentioned that he gets me to tell stories of the combinations of animals that he makes up for that day. Well if you thought that was hard, try doing it with cars.
Yes..my son has inherited my craze for cars. These days he is so much into cars that the only conversation that I seem to have with him these days is about the various cars in the world and which happens to be the fastest. And that's not all, whenever he sees a picture of a new car he invariably wants to know how fast it is and how it compares to other cars as far as speed is concerned. This means that I have to keep track of what I have told him as he corrects me if I give the wrong info. Talk about the difficulties of parenting. :)
Well..back to the point. I have to tell stories of cars racing each other and I have been mandated by my son that each car has to have its own distinct personality. Add to it guns, bombs, police cars and helicopters and I think that if I were any good at creating computer games, mine would have been selling like hot cakes. Ohhh..the stories I tell are so thrilling..all those ferraris and lamborginis..I am awed at myself for the stories that I create everyday. Well..you can't fault me for indulging myself a bit.
So it seems that the "Potli" of this baba still has enough material to keep his son happy..the legacy continues.
But all these days the story telling has continued. And it has actually been a tough time..thanks to my kid as always. Last time I mentioned that he gets me to tell stories of the combinations of animals that he makes up for that day. Well if you thought that was hard, try doing it with cars.
Yes..my son has inherited my craze for cars. These days he is so much into cars that the only conversation that I seem to have with him these days is about the various cars in the world and which happens to be the fastest. And that's not all, whenever he sees a picture of a new car he invariably wants to know how fast it is and how it compares to other cars as far as speed is concerned. This means that I have to keep track of what I have told him as he corrects me if I give the wrong info. Talk about the difficulties of parenting. :)
Well..back to the point. I have to tell stories of cars racing each other and I have been mandated by my son that each car has to have its own distinct personality. Add to it guns, bombs, police cars and helicopters and I think that if I were any good at creating computer games, mine would have been selling like hot cakes. Ohhh..the stories I tell are so thrilling..all those ferraris and lamborginis..I am awed at myself for the stories that I create everyday. Well..you can't fault me for indulging myself a bit.
So it seems that the "Potli" of this baba still has enough material to keep his son happy..the legacy continues.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Potli Baba Ki
When I was a just a kid in school, there used to be a TV serial called as "Potli Baba ki" every Sunday. The storyline was about an elderly character who used to roam around and the local children running behind him pestering for a story. And that man used to oblige the kids with a wonderful new story every time. I don't remember much of those stories except that they had us glued to the idiot box. Actually I loved stories in any format..be it a printed book or a TV serial or a story told by somebody. As I grew up my liking for stories continued in the form of reading books.
Now I am a father and see the same attachment for stories in my kid. I guess all kids have fascination for stories. So it came as no surprise to me that my son started demanding stories during bedtime. Now that caused me considerable panic, for while I have read a lot of stories and can recall quite a few of them, I am an absolute dud at story-telling. I had hoped that my wife would take up that particular activity and spare me. But I miscalculated, she already had the same plans for me and was more prepared for the eventuality. She convinced our son that I was a master story-teller as I read a lot of books and I could tell him many stories. So to cut a long story short I got nominated formally as the story-teller.
Since I had no faith at all in my story-telling abilities I took the next best way out. Fortunately, I had a good collection of the Tinkle Digests. It contained some good stories with supporting pictures. I started telling those stories to my son along with the pictures. This way I memorised 4-5 stories and then took to repeating them one story every night. This went on for a while and I congratulated myself for the danger averted.
I was premature in patting myself. My kid is in the habit of visiting his grand-parents every weekend and his story listening continued with them. Now as with grandmothers and grandfathers the world over, they have quite a good supply of stories with them. All those kings, queens, prince and princesses and fairies and witches started appearing and started making life difficult for me. And when the animals from the jungles made an appearance then my life was just shot to hell. Now my kid started demanding stories with particular characters. The Aesop and Panchantra helped to a certain extent. But one day my son demanded an animal story that I didn't knew of. I should have refused, instead I somehow made up one with the help of my wife. It just gave my son an incentive that I could have done without. He started coming out with different combinations of animals. I tried to blunder my way through, and with my wife laughing her head off in her pillow nearby, it was very discouraging. Many times I tried to dissuade my kid by saying I will tell him the normal stories, but he used to be adamant and insisted that I tell a story for the combination he had prepared for that day.
Gradually I noticed that I had actually started enjoying making up stories during this activity. I noticed that after I completed a story my son appreciates the story and then goes off to sleep. Occasionally he makes a return to the normal stories, but mostly he likes the stories that I make up as per his wish. This is now a pleasurable activity for both of us and I found that we have started bonding more with each other. I also noticed that he tries to make up his own stories. All this has had a positive impact on both of us.
I guess that when I become a grandfather, I too will have lot of stories to tell my grand kids. I will have then joined the rank of story telling grand parents like the world over and I have my kid to thank for this. This makes me think that I too now have what my kid can refer to as "potli baba ki".
Now I am a father and see the same attachment for stories in my kid. I guess all kids have fascination for stories. So it came as no surprise to me that my son started demanding stories during bedtime. Now that caused me considerable panic, for while I have read a lot of stories and can recall quite a few of them, I am an absolute dud at story-telling. I had hoped that my wife would take up that particular activity and spare me. But I miscalculated, she already had the same plans for me and was more prepared for the eventuality. She convinced our son that I was a master story-teller as I read a lot of books and I could tell him many stories. So to cut a long story short I got nominated formally as the story-teller.
Since I had no faith at all in my story-telling abilities I took the next best way out. Fortunately, I had a good collection of the Tinkle Digests. It contained some good stories with supporting pictures. I started telling those stories to my son along with the pictures. This way I memorised 4-5 stories and then took to repeating them one story every night. This went on for a while and I congratulated myself for the danger averted.
I was premature in patting myself. My kid is in the habit of visiting his grand-parents every weekend and his story listening continued with them. Now as with grandmothers and grandfathers the world over, they have quite a good supply of stories with them. All those kings, queens, prince and princesses and fairies and witches started appearing and started making life difficult for me. And when the animals from the jungles made an appearance then my life was just shot to hell. Now my kid started demanding stories with particular characters. The Aesop and Panchantra helped to a certain extent. But one day my son demanded an animal story that I didn't knew of. I should have refused, instead I somehow made up one with the help of my wife. It just gave my son an incentive that I could have done without. He started coming out with different combinations of animals. I tried to blunder my way through, and with my wife laughing her head off in her pillow nearby, it was very discouraging. Many times I tried to dissuade my kid by saying I will tell him the normal stories, but he used to be adamant and insisted that I tell a story for the combination he had prepared for that day.
Gradually I noticed that I had actually started enjoying making up stories during this activity. I noticed that after I completed a story my son appreciates the story and then goes off to sleep. Occasionally he makes a return to the normal stories, but mostly he likes the stories that I make up as per his wish. This is now a pleasurable activity for both of us and I found that we have started bonding more with each other. I also noticed that he tries to make up his own stories. All this has had a positive impact on both of us.
I guess that when I become a grandfather, I too will have lot of stories to tell my grand kids. I will have then joined the rank of story telling grand parents like the world over and I have my kid to thank for this. This makes me think that I too now have what my kid can refer to as "potli baba ki".
Saturday, January 24, 2009
New Year Resolution
It was that time of the year when you prepare yourself for the most pleasurable task of all. Preparing the list of resolutions for the new year.
I am sure that many of us would agree that the exercise of making resolutions is such a fun activity, especially when you compare your list with your friends and find some unique items for copying. Making new year resolution is that time when you feel that you can will yourself to do just about anything. The only constraint is that there are so many things to do and so little time that you have to take a very hard and painful decision of cutting short the list of things that you would want to do. I am also sure that the same people would also agree that actually doing those things in the list isn't as much fun. I mean look at all the efforts and the time that you have to spend to stick to your resolutions. I mean it is simply not worth it. So all these years I have had a enjoyable time making such an impressive list of resolutions....and not sticking to them.
But this time I thought let me buck the trend and actually stick to my resolutions, at the least one. With this in mind I started to think of the things that I would want to do this year. It was proved to be very difficult. The resolution lists of the earlier years were of no use at all....I mean you don't seriously think that I would think of doing all those inhuman feats like getting up early in the morning before the sunrise or even worse go out for a brisk walk or jog for that matter or horror of horrors cut down on my intake of all those yummy items like icecreams, shakes, pizzas, sweets etc. to get in a shape that no longer resembles a bean bag.
Perish that thought...such resolutions are not meant for the likes of me. Simple and manageable is my motto when it comes to resolutions. I wanted to think of something sensible..something that I can actually execute without any problems..something like..like..you get the idea right. I wasn't used to making resolutions that I actually wanted to follow. So when I wanted to make one that I actually wanted to follow, I couldn't think of one..so after a lot of deep thought I convinced myself that I needed to borrow a resolution..and so I did. So my resolution for the year 2009 is...
.....
.....
.....
1024*768 pixels...what the heck, you can't fault me on this..a resolution is a resolution and I guess that I can stick to this without much problem.
I am sure that many of us would agree that the exercise of making resolutions is such a fun activity, especially when you compare your list with your friends and find some unique items for copying. Making new year resolution is that time when you feel that you can will yourself to do just about anything. The only constraint is that there are so many things to do and so little time that you have to take a very hard and painful decision of cutting short the list of things that you would want to do. I am also sure that the same people would also agree that actually doing those things in the list isn't as much fun. I mean look at all the efforts and the time that you have to spend to stick to your resolutions. I mean it is simply not worth it. So all these years I have had a enjoyable time making such an impressive list of resolutions....and not sticking to them.
But this time I thought let me buck the trend and actually stick to my resolutions, at the least one. With this in mind I started to think of the things that I would want to do this year. It was proved to be very difficult. The resolution lists of the earlier years were of no use at all....I mean you don't seriously think that I would think of doing all those inhuman feats like getting up early in the morning before the sunrise or even worse go out for a brisk walk or jog for that matter or horror of horrors cut down on my intake of all those yummy items like icecreams, shakes, pizzas, sweets etc. to get in a shape that no longer resembles a bean bag.
Perish that thought...such resolutions are not meant for the likes of me. Simple and manageable is my motto when it comes to resolutions. I wanted to think of something sensible..something that I can actually execute without any problems..something like..like..you get the idea right. I wasn't used to making resolutions that I actually wanted to follow. So when I wanted to make one that I actually wanted to follow, I couldn't think of one..so after a lot of deep thought I convinced myself that I needed to borrow a resolution..and so I did. So my resolution for the year 2009 is...
.....
.....
.....
1024*768 pixels...what the heck, you can't fault me on this..a resolution is a resolution and I guess that I can stick to this without much problem.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Morachi Chincholi - The Peacock Haven
Last Saturday I had been to a place called as "Morachi Chincholi" about 60-70 kms from Pune off the Pune-Nagar state highway. The place is called as such due to the unusually high number of peacocks inhabiting in the profusion of tamarind trees in that village for in Marathi peacocks are referred to as "Mor" while "Chincholi" means a tamarind thicket or a jungle of tamarind trees.
We travelled from Pune in our car early in the morning as we were told that th
e peacocks are usually found in open at that time. As we left highway to travel down a small road to "Morachi Chincholi" the magic of the place slowly started to make its presence felt. The fields appeared on both side of the road. We passed a village the name of which I forget now. It had a typical rural setting. There were old villagers sitting at their usual "kattas" and the small kids eyeing us with curiosity as we passed through the village. 
These and other sights and smells of the village made me realise that how simple life is in a village. And it also made me realise how different and stressful life do we lead in our cities. I could actually feel myself relaxing in this atmosphere.We were now nearing the village when we stopped the car for a break. Immediately
the unmistakable cry of the the peacocks came to our ears. And they were so many of them. We went into the nearby field and immediately saw a small of flock of peacocks. One of amazing sights that we came across was that these birds were perfectly at home in the fields with the villagers working nearby. So used were they used to their presence that they frequently passed by within reach of the villagers. We were told that this is a common sight in the village as villagers actually took care of these birds. But for all their familiarity with humans, the peacocks were shy of any 
outsiders. However much I tried to get close to get decent photos of these magnificent birds they took flight. So getting a good enough snap with a standard 50 mm lens was nearly impossible. The one that I managed to click appears so distant that it is difficult to decipher whether the bird is a peacock or just a common cock. Suffice is to say that to avoid further embarrassment I have refrained from showcasing my photographic talents. All the peacock snaps are courtesy of a friend with us from whom I have borrowed few snaps (with permission of course).The magic continued to manifest itself as we travelled further into the village.
The villagers were very helpful in providing information as to the whereabouts of the peacocks. We could see the pride in everybodys face when they talked about how unique they were to have such a beautiful coexistence between the humans and the birds. We soon arrived at the local school which was situated on 
agricultural college research and nursery lands. The peacocks are said to flock there in large numbers given the fact that they are regularly provided with grains over there. But we were a bit late in catching that sight of feeding birds. Instead we spent what remained of the morning clicking photos of the many varieties of flowers blooming in the nursery.We soon lost ourselves in the restful atmosphere of the place. We just lazed around for some time in the cool shadows of the tamarind trees. However, soon it was time to leave. It was hard letting go such was the hold that place exerted on us. On our way out we enquired about accommodation availability. We were glad to know that the nursery grounds had basic accommodation available. So with a heavy heart and a promise to ourselves to return back to this magical place again, we bade "Morachi Chincholi" a good bye.
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