BRTS To Start in Pune

At last the BRTS is going to start in Pune. Hope the planning and execution and hard work of the PMC pays off and it is successful so that the traffic congestion, accidents and traffic jams reduces.
Keeping fingers crossed!
Another area Pune can improve is beautification of the Mula Mutha river banks. The river is a beautiful water body which if properly managed can add tremendously to the city's tourist attraction. Just as the Seine river in Paris manages to attract hordes of tourists with its river cruise where tourists can get an idea of the main historic events during the river ride, something on the same lines must be thought about Pune too. Only then it can become a truly modern smart city.

                                   
                                                               Pic : Mula Mutha Now        

Pic  : Cruise on Seine River

PMC :  Can we convert Mula Mutha into Seine river ?

Big Boss8 Poem :23rd Jan 2015

My poem about Big Boss8

Never miss Big Boss at 9!

With the contestants Sonali, Karisma, Pritam and Upen

Sometimes they make u laugh and sometimes cry!

With their quarrels , and jokes and safai!

‘Where’s my makeup?’, shouts Karishma

Losing it leaves the big boss house in a shakeup!

Pritam is a nice and funny guy!

You can feel from far he has constipation!

Dimpy with her dimpled smile

Beware others she will make u cry

Ali Quli is the confused guy

Sometimes his actions are just not right!

Upen was the ideal brother

Till he decided to become the eternal lover!

With Salman the weekends were fun

Till Farah came & now I want to get my gun!

So farewell till the finale

Fifty lacs will be the winner’s kitty

So give it your best shot my pretties!

22nd Jan 2015

Another Saraswati puja day approaches. Yesterday Koni from our complex came to give the card for Saraswati puja and collect the money. I was thinking that maybe this time they were not coming to collect the puja subscription at all .Paranoia attack! All of us like to think that the world revolves around us.
Big Boss8 has become quite boring now with the predictable fights and flare ups between the contestents. Yesterday they were given a task where the contestents were asked to keep a button pressed while standing. The contestent who was able to keep the button pressed for the longest time would be declared the winner and would get 25lakhs as prize money. Pritam won the task in the end as he could keep standing for nearly 36 hours straight without sleep or food. I was wondering if i had been given the task how long could i have kept standing. Maybe only 5 or 6 hours at the most and that too with great difficulty.
It really is a test of endurance more than anything else.
So many things come to my mind and I keep thinking that I should write this down in this diary. But when the time comes to pen the thoughts i forget about it. Yesterday i suddenly wanted to pen a poem. But i forget what the lines were. It went something like this

What a strange story this life of mine is!

When i got what i wanted! Alas! I realised it was not

What i was looking for all along!

Money, a little bit of it, Respect and love

All are things, a bit of which i have sampled

In this life of mine!

What am i looking for then ?

What am i still thirsty for?

Why do i yearn with a hopeless longing

And dream of impossible things!

There can never be true satiety

When i drink from this cup of mortal sins

1st Jan 2014

Another year has passed by rapidly - 2014. The past year was a good one for us in many ways. Sona’s imp class 10 result, getting admission in a good place for 11th 12th. My work in the office went well with a new development & S’s office peaceful. 31st Dec we went to Lonavla for the purpose of trekking to Lohagad fort. But we could go only halfway up as theroad was very bad & looked risky to climb by car.
      1st Jan was gloomy and dull. I had taken medical leave from Mon - Thurs (1st), so it was a holiday for us all. Sona was studying chem in the morning - chemical bonding with me and its quite tough & conceptual. S went off cycling and came quite late past lunchtime. Sona wanted lunch and when I asked her to wait for S, she quarreled with me. Afternoon I slept and evening went to Kali mandir for divine blessings, also to ganesh mandir. Evening I made Sona’s favourite manchurian for dinner and mongini cake. The balls were breaking and i had a bit of struggle making it, but the dish turned out ok.After watching big boss we did some more chemistry. Called everyone to wish hny, dada also called in the afternoon. Hope the tenor of 2014 continues this year also with studies and office and specially health. 2nd Jan came to office - same old same old place.

Uniqueness of India

India is a unique country. Notwithstanding its numerous problems there are plenty of advantages of living in India.

1. It is a land of plentiful sunshine. Sunshine which is our primary source of energy is abundant here and most of us wake up to a cheerfully shining sun outside our windows. Imagine the days when the bleak and gloomy weather outside makes us feel depressed as well.
2.  It has the most beautiful and magnificient beaches and hill stations. Being a peninsula itis surrounded on three sides by oceans and seas, the Indian ocean, the Bay of Bengal Andthe arabian sea cover the coastline of India. Due to this unique geography India has some of the most amazing beaches in the world and the advantage that one can bathe almost the whole year round. Puri beach has the most magnificient waves which are so huge sometimes to be almost like mini tsunami. The coastline covers a range of 7500km which is more than the distance from Kolkata to London.

3. India is straddled by the Himalayan mountain ranges, the longest, highest, most pictureesque mountain ranges in the world to the north. They act as a natural barrier to the cold winds flowing in from Siberia and Afghanistan. The highest peaks like Everest and Kanchanjunga are found here.  The mountains cover a stretch of around 2000 km. The mountains are the birthplace of the most sacred rivers of India - Ganga, Yamuna , and Brahmaputra. Some of the most beautiful places in the world nestle in the hills and mountains like Kashmir, Shimla, Shillong, Darjeeling and Kulu.

4. Apart from seas and mountains there are some beautiful islands to visit here like Andaman and Lakshwadeep. There is also Thar desert in Rajasthan and The Sunderbans in Bengal both very distinct and unique features.

5. The people of India are also unique and varied. From the almost foreign fairness of people from Kashmir, there are dark skinned people of South India. Home to twenty different languages and 200 dialects, study of the culture and customs of India can turn up to be an anthropologist’s dream.

6. This is a place where you will never get bored as there are too many things to do and see than can be covered in a single lifetime.

Problems faced in India

Some common  problems in India

1. Population
2. Unemployment
3. Energy scarcity in many regions
4. Garbage & its disposal
5. Competition for jobs and its accompanying stress which burden school children and adults alike.
6.  Children have to carry bags filled with schoolbooks weighing as much as 5kg to school everyday which adds to their work load.
7.  Very bad state of public transport in states like Maharastra
8.  The stress and pace of everyday life leaves no time to enjoy life.
9. Rote learning based education system which makes going to school a bore
10.  Unfulfilling jobs which makes going to office a bore
11. Insipid and uninspiring serials on TV which make watching TV a bore
12. Very few good authors with the same ole stories which makes reading books a bore

The views expressed here are personal and in no way try to demean anyone.

One line answers

The news in yesterday’s newspapers was that PM had decided to cut down the number of policemen required to secure his travel route when a forthright police constable told him that policemen were kept so busy on bandobust duty of vips that they had no time for other activities referring to pm’s swach bharat campaign of keeping the thana clean. This short, honest and succinct answer made me think about one line answers as compared to long winded verbose and lengthy replies which are inherently diplomatic and tends towards dishonesty. A long and lengthy explanation would have been polite, for example if the constable had replied that inspite of their trying to keep the premises clean the people who came to the station had habit of spitting, dropped empty packets and polythenes which dirtied the surroundings that too would be correct but only half the truth. One line answers are seldom appreciated by the person asking the question. This is because they are either yes or no replies. If reply is positive which is most often not the case as then the question itself would be too easy or facile. If the reply is negative which is most often the case, it leaves little room for manoeuvre to the replier or the questioner. If the answer is fuzzy , it gives the replier a chance to modify, amend or firm up his reply when he gets his next question, depending on the tenor of the next question and the attitude of the person asking it. Generally a person who gives one line replies can fall in three categories only
1. When a superior is replying to a subordinate’s question, or a stranger asking questions of another will not think it necessary to qualify his answers.
2. A person who replies in monosyllables is considered to be dim witted, dull, apathetic or suicidal
3. A person who is honest and egoistic enough to believe that he need not qualify his answer as it is the truth.
So it is very obvious that most of us give long replies when asked troublesome or tricky questions as it has the advantage of politeness, tact,and partial correctness.

I wonder what consequences the police constable will now be facing from his superiors over his hasty reply.