I am a romantic person at heart, an optimist but sometimes a cynic too. It was always my doubt if men related to what Bryan Adams sang in this song – “Have you ever loved a woman?”.

Two years and eight months since I have known him and there never was a moment when I doubted it again. There are some relations that sometimes end up taking a completely new definition in life that one can never imagine and this is definitely it.

I was listening to this song yesterday in the car and it just got me thinking…. and yes, I can surely say, he loves me

Diwali at our place

This question comes to my mind time and again. I love the fact that I was born an Indian and the only country which has maximum number of festivals celebrated and moreover one gets holidays for them too. Festivals do make life very colourful and Diwali probably tops them all with Holi coming in second for me. There is a lot of hope, excitement and activity all around you. The definite thing is one misses this fervour when one is away from India. Diwali is never the same, even if we do celebrate it with other Indians in an Indian temple. I feel what we miss is the family and close friends more than the activities related with the festival.

After all, these festivals were an occasion for family gatherings and coming from a family that is quite obsessed with gatherings, I am one for get-togethers, especially on important festivals. But, other than this, a festival doesn’t mean too much to me personally. Yes, there are some rituals and pujas to be performed. Diwali and Ganesh Chaturthi are probably the only two for which I do that; but what about all the others? I love decorating my house for Diwali and arranging the little pandal for Ganesh ji at home. But many other festivals have lost their prominence and relevance in today’s modern setup, at least in the cities, with fast paced lives and hardly any time for others. I think that they are probably still prevalent in villages where life primarily revolves around agriculture.

This Diwali, I was in two minds. What with all the smoke that comes out of the firecrackers should I really be spending money on crackers and two what is Diwali without them. After all it is just one day in a year. All the pollution that the festivals cause makes my heart bleed. So do the extravagancies of Ganesh Chaturthi and Durga Puja and so on and so forth.

I feel that with the changing times, we should revamp the way in which the festivals are celebrated. Maintaining the essence of a festival is crucial for continuing our age old traditions and customs, but extravagance can be curbed in order to preserve our fast depleting ecology. For example, one can decorate the house for Diwali and light beautiful Diyas, but curbing on the extravagance of excessive fireworks would do us all a lot of good. Else, we will neither have a culture nor a planet for our future generations.

All said and done, festive greetings and wishes for a wonderful Diwali with a prosperous year ahead.

I just started reading the book called Hyderabad – A Biography by Narendra Luther and I must say that so far it is a very well told story about the origin of this city. From the time I have known Hyderabad, I have never really found a reason to love it, but it was a place that was infinitely better than many other places and suited a number of my needs. Over the years, I have made this city my home.

What does one associate with the place that they term as a home? For one, there should be a sense of belongingness and most importantly a higher sense of ownership and responsibility to the place; irrespective of the fact that you are in a position of power or an ordinary denizen. Mohammad Quli, the founder of Bhagnagar or Hyderabad was a man who loved his home. The need to construct a city came from the congestion caused within the ramparts of Golconda or Gollakonda. He commissioned the best of architects and wanted heaven to be reconstructed here on Earth, or more precisely on his land. One of the primary wishes of the Sultan was to have greenery wherever he saw. No wonder then that the best minds were put to efficient use and the best planned city of India was constructed at a remarkable pace. The chief person in command had ensured saplings to be planted even before the construction had begun. The sultan who was a poet and a man of extreme taste was a perpetual romantic at heart. He named the city Bhagnagar after his most favoured queen – Bhagmati. (I wonder now what happened to all that and in its place is an old city which is highly congested, dirty, treeless and forgotten in many ways.)

The Palace of Justice was also commissioned as a part of this project and after  its completion, the sultan used it to dispense justice to its citizens – most results were almost immediate. The builders of that era must have been great visionaries, for we still use the same building as our Andhra Pradesh High Court. The recent episode of the AP High Court catching fire was not something particularly out of the blue. If we, the current users of that lovely building, do not bother to upgrade and take care of the ancient premises and use it for our own selfish purpose, then a short circuit and incidents like fire are but natural. What I hear from sources who work at the high court is that the judges are too busy in trying to compete with themselves and ensure that their respective chambers look better than the rest. Whether such a selfish act damages the ancient building is obviously none of their concern. Moreover, the various associations that are formed in the court, all of them have their own agenda and none seem to be remotely concerned about the state of the premises and any safety norms. It is the typical “chalta hai” attitude about everything around us, except ourselves that so irks me.

If one asks about what can be done for the upkeep of the ancient high court premises, then the responsibility is comfortably thrown on the Government. Why do we fail to follow that Government in this democratic nation is nothing but the people ourselves? Moreover this statement being made by the institution that was created to ensure that the Government performs its duties correctly – the Judiciary, is nothing but a matter of great shame. The constant dilapidation of the high court building and the famous delays made by our lazy Judges or rather the snail’s pace with which the Judiciary system in India works is a clear testament to the utter selfishness, sloth and corruption that has sadly been entrenched in the system. I really find it appalling that a case should take 20 odd years to reach a verdict. Justice delayed is Justice denied and I am not sure if ever our Indian Judiciary will come out of this vicious circle. Fortunately, the financial crisis of the 90s forced India into liberalization, but what can possible force the Judiciary into such liberalization is a million dollar question that I would like someone to answer.

But, in the hope that there are many people like me, who love their homeland and would want to see a change in the future, I hope and would fervently want to believe that some drastic steps are taken to ensure that the justice system in India is much more efficient and get back the guts to decide and give out a verdict, immediately. Otherwise we will still be facing many other Shopian cases.

The last one year has seen a series of things happening in our lives and the question of a vacation or break seemed sometimes impossible and sometimes untimely. We set our new home and yes it did take up a lot of our energies and efforts and the saga continues. Ask any home owner and they would concur. But all said and done, we did plan out a week’s break away from home. My husband and I love travelling and with areas around Hyderabad being so deprived of proper weekend getaways, we were dying to be out of Hyd.

We decided to plan our own trip itinerary with the primary push of finding of (mind you) cheap air-tickets; took a flight from Hyd to Bangalore and then immediately a train to Mysore. Our first stop was in Mysore, for two days and we were staying in the Infosys – Mysore campus.

Mysore Infosys Campus

Infy employees can avail a weekend’s accommodation in the campus, subject to prior booking and availability. I have visited a number of Infosys’ campuses around the country but this facility takes the cake. I am pretty sure that it must be one of the best training facilities in the world. The accommodation is 4 star with stylish, modern and comfortable designing. Our guest house was styled as per Spanish villas and the facility has – four screen multiplex, bowling alley, umpteen number of tennis courts, pool tables, shuttle courts, basket-ball courts, volley ball court  and squash courts. Added to all this a spa-like swimming pool, football ground with running track and a complete cricket ground with a pavilion. May be the only thing missing was the night playing facility for the cricket ground . We spent the better part of our first day touring the campus.

Our acco on the Mysore campus

Each of the training and development building is in itself a lovely piece of architecture and added to all this, some of Infy’s trademark landscaping. I suppose for the trainees, once they are done with the initial phase the saying of “picture abhi baaki hai yaar” would start when they are moved to others development centers .

In spite of all this, we had to get out of the campus to see the city and Mysore was a delight in itself. The public transport facility is pretty good, but we went by a cab, as we had a single day to cover all the places. We visited the Chamundi temple, atop a hill and then the Mysore Maharaja Palace, via the Maha Nandi statue. It could

Maha Nandi

be one of the younger Indian palaces, re-built in early 1900s after a fire that burnt down the original palace. It has influences from Hindu, Muslim and English architecture. The marriage hall/ceremonies hall is a spectacular stained glass arena, with beautiful Indian motives. I especially liked the main hall where the King entertained his chosen guests or the Diwan-e-khas and didn’t quite feel like coming out of it (unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside the palace).

Mysore Palace

We then proceeded to Srirangapatnam and saw Tipu Sultan’s summer palace. His fort in Srirangapatnamhas been in ruins for long and it was a little depressing and heart wrenching to see the place where Tipu’s body was found after the final battle.

It was now time to move on from history to nature and we went to the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary. This lovely sanctuary is located on the banks of the Cauvery River and tourists are taken on a boat ride in the river. Due to the higher water levels that day, boating was not permitted, but I must still say, the place was

Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

divine. Beautiful tall trees, sounds of various birds chirping away and the quiet and peace of it all rejuvenated us completely. After a well spent time, we proceeded to the famous Brindavan gardens. To its credit the gardens are pretty well maintained, but I felt they could do much better. Probably having seen so many other places around the world which are of much larger size and magnitude has spoiled me . This is surely no place for any kind of peace and tranquility as the gardens were swarming with people. We chose to see the lighting at the Mysore Maharaja palace and without much ado, bid a goodbye to Brindavan gardens. I must admit, the palace lighting is worth the sight. Do not ever miss it. The moment one sees the whole palace lit up in one go, the sense of energy and happiness that one enjoys is beyond words. Even after a long day’s sight-seeing, this last sight made me feel suddenly very alive.

Mysore Palace - All Lit Up

The next day we proceeded to Ooty via Bandipur Wildlife Reserve. This forest is called Mudumalai Forest Reserve by the Tamil Nadu Government. One can take up cottages here and stay in wilderness for a few days or just stop by on your way to Ooty to take a 45 minute jungle safari.

We managed to spot some animals – deer, langoor, elephants, mongoose, etc, but were not so fortunate to see a tiger. The Safari timings are from early morning 6 to 9 and then start from 4 in the evening to 6 P.M. It is said that one should take the safari either at dawn or dusk to see maximum number of animals. We had to take the 4 ‘o’ clock safari as we had to reach Ooty by nightfall. We had our own adventure here, because we opted for public transport instead of a cab and finally managed to reach Ooty,

A view from Hotel Sherlock, Ooty

negotiating the 36 hairpins on our way by night fall. We had booked Hotel Sherlock in Ooty. A nice, quaint, small cottage like hotel with just nine rooms and each room being named either after Sherlock Holmes’ characters or places. It is a very nice hotel, with a brilliant view and a very well maintained garden. The breakfast buffet served with the room reservation was pretty good, as per the hotel standards.

We checked out of Sherlock before 11:00 AM and took a cab out to check out Ooty. The Botanical gardens and the Rose gardens were very well maintained. They stand a testimony to imperial Ooty and it was nice to see the tall trees and lovely gardens all around. The rainy season and the cloud cover made the whole experience worthwhile. We also went to Doddabetta peak which is supposed to be the second highest peak in south India and then did the typical filmy – Dil Diwana kind of thing – went boating in the Ooty lake. It was fun and yes, please don’t miss it.

Our final destination was Coonoor where we spent the better part of our vacation – 4 days, doing nothing much, but taking in the beautiful weather and the amazing hospitality of Taj hotels. We were staying at the Gateway Hotel – Coonoor or the erstwhile Taj Garden Retreat.It being an off-season, we got an upgrade in our room too.  I have been to

The Gateway Hotel - Coonor

numerous buffets at various Taj hotels, but I must a say, we came to know why the Taj hotels reign supreme and are raved for their service. One can never ask for more as you are always so well taken care of. The a-la-carte meals prepared were excellent and the hotel premises and the setting was simply divine. You can’t help but unwind completely. It was one of our very first Taj holidays and we are pretty sure it won’t be the last .

Coonor in itself is a lovely place and one can see Tea Gardens all around. We visited the customary tourist places and liked them pretty well. The highlight was the Sims Park and then the toy train ride from Coonoor to Ooty and then back to Coonoor. Took a first class on our way up and then came by the general. This toy train is

Toy train

another lovely experience and once more a must do in the Nilgiris.

We flew back from Coimbatore and I must thank the weather for it being so absolutely perfect – cloudy, pleasant and hardly any rain all through. At the end of the week, I was completely recharged, dying to get back to home and ready to start my work.

Orkut was a craze when introduced and one’s presence on it was considered in vogue. These days that glory belongs to Facebook. I have always wondered what use Orkut can ever do for me, except for connecting (temporarily) with long lost friends. Well, I must admit that going with the latest fad I took to it, or rather tried to with quite a bit of enthusiasm. May be I have aged and my priorities differ and I only check my profile very rarely. In fact I still find it easier than Facebook, where I did create an account and successfully forgot the password. For some reason when I try and reset it, I never get the updated one, so I just let the whole thing fade.

Coming to Orkut, one thing is for sure, I got to see what kind of person my hubs was before we even met and yes, it can help a lot in knowing the general bent of an individual. Apart from that, I find most of the social networking sites – esp Orkut a real waste of time. Linkedin might differ a little, but it yet to catch up and will take time to be recognised as a reliable recruitment reference site.

My cousin is leaving for the US and she informed me that she managed to get in touch with her prospective roomies through Orkut. She managed to fix up everything through Orkut links, emails and some local references. Six years back, when my close friend left in pusuit of happyness she only had her senior to rely on and that was the case with many people before her. For the second time in my life, I found Orkut being useful (to someone, at least) as a social networking site. But once again, it caters primarily to students and I doubt – having now found my partner – if it can ever be useful to me in a better manner than congratulating friends upon weddings, engagements, babies, birthdays etc.

Recently, I happened to watch this movie called – The Mirror Has Two Faces: directed by Barbara Streisand and also, playing the lead with Jeff Bridges. The crux of the story revolves around two middle-aged people who have not been lucky with relationships in the past. Both are professors at Columbia University – the male, mathematics professor is described as ‘Attractive & Boring‘ where as the lady who is the literature professor is said to be ‘Unattractive & Witty‘. Thus with a paper ad starts their arranged courtship where both like each other’s company and their mutual respect and admiration grows with time.

It is interesting to note that the couple does get married with minimal inclination or want for a sexual life. Gregory has come to believe that sex has nothing to do with relationships and that was one of the primary reasons why his past relationships failed. Rose, married Gregory because she liked him. After all these years of rejection from various supposed loves, she felt that marrying someone she likes, even without love would be fine. Their life together is more like two roommates or friends living together. But human mind/heart wants more from life and Rose is no different – she wants more from her marriage. Frustration reigns supreme and when Gregory goes on a summer teaching trip, Rose tries one last ditch attempt to save her marriage. She decides to get into shape and by the time Gregory returns Rose is at her attractive best and tries to woo Gregory.

Consummate means to complete and I feel this word acquires an all new meaning when used with marriage. Personally, I feel that a life to be led without love is totally meaningless. I for one could never imagine committing myself to someone I had no love or respect or attraction. Yes, attraction is also very important. Compatibility comes from understanding each other better and knowing what your partner needs. But this want to know more about this one person, around whom your life revolves, can only come from love. Physical attraction, I feel helps a lot to make this bond even stronger.

Attraction may not be total and complete at the outset, just like Rose and Gregory’s case, but with time anything is possible. Consummating a marriage is nature’s way of making the lovely bond between a couple more meaningful. Sex is definitely not the only thing in a marriage or a relationship, but it helps a great deal in making one’s relationship a whole lot richer and worthy of your precious time to be spent on that one person. I would want to add that it is not just sex, but sense of touch and belonging is also a part of this game. So, what happened to Rose and Gregory, you might want to watch the movie, it’s not bad at all and very well dealt theme too. But, if you have read this post, am sure you can guess the ending by now.

So, if you are in a relationship, make the most of it – in all ways.

The bamboo plant that we acquired has proved to be quite a task to handle. There are a lot of things about this lovely plant. The nature of bamboo is to grow in undergrowths with hardly any light penetrating from the tall trees all around. We felt that keeping the bamboo under shade would be fine, but then it still seemed to be too much light for it. Finally found a very dark corner and this seems to be suiting it fine.

Another important aspect with bamboo is that one should water it – daily, but with soft water. No hard water or bore water for this dainty lady. This was one main reason for loosing many of the shoots.

It is a high maintanence, but we have managed to keep it going for now. Still sometimes some shoots just start to dry and then rot. One has no alternative but to remove those shoots and it really hurts. If any of you have any better handling tricks with bamboo, please let me know.

Bamboos are quirky plants and needs loads of love, talking and attention. We still love them

As I sit and spend my days/take a break from my blog, trying to tackle the sweltering hot summer days of Hyd, I remembered this wonderful poem by D. H. Lawrence. This poem also belongs to my class X days and my tryst with English Literature that I thoroughly enjoyed thanks to Mrs.Rebero, our English teacher.

So, this poem is about the author spotting a golden snake on one such hot afternoon in Sicily and the beauty lies in the way he describes these often detested creatures. The poem is written in a simple style that doesn’t require too much explanation, but the wonderful way in which the poet describes a simple event in a rural area and the small moral he draws out of it is indeed wonderful. Go ahead and enjoy the poem and yes, please do not hurt any animals – on hindsight I find this poem apt to be used for some kind of animal rights preservation day, etc, but then one with a compassionate heart can enjoy it anyday.

Snake

By: D.H.Lawrence

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
i o And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

With slight hitches and glitches, some dated entries, I finally managed to complete my Blog-A-Thon for the month of April, 2009. 

I must admit that writing everyday was a challenge and some of my articles were not upto the mark. But I felt that this regularity helped me to write better and more in this one month on some topics I wouldn’t ideally have dealt with. 

Over all a great experience and I hope that my readers liked it. 

I hope to be much more regular and conduct some more Blog-A-Thons in the future.

Sweltering summers do see the a/c section of the electronic stores brimming with people, but trust me, in order to instal a split air conditioner is a pain in itself. The primary reason being the inability of the builder of our apartment in providing the provision for the Split Air Con installation. 

I was apprised of the lack of logistics in our apartment, for a split a/c installation, just today. Now a split consists of:

• an indoor unit
• an outdoor unit
• a stabilizer
• and a not very well know support for the indoor unit (which our guys forgot to pack it for us)

The indoor unit’s supporting metal plate is fixed first and then goes the marking for the mess or the drilling area. If my apartment builder – who claims to be a building “Intelligent” homes – Aliens Elite - had ideally provided for a split then we wouldn’t have required to go in for this drilling. But, as things stand, apparently drilling is a norm. So our bedroom was in a state of utter mess. This drilling is primarily done in order to connect the indoor with the outdoor unit with a set of cables and gas lines for the a/c. 

Next the outdoor unit is heaved on to the wall using two metal supports and more drilling is on for that and also to hang the stabilizer. 

Finally the indoor unit is hung and after four hours of mess – the split a/c is finally installed. 

What makes me mad is the fact that the builder in most apartment claims to give “provision for split a/c” and when one really wants to utilise this provision it never seems to be done the right way or is placed in the most unimaginable location – right over the bed. The builder supposedly provided us with a plug point (which we never used, as the location was most in convenient) and an outlet pipe which once again is useless. 

A word of caution, when you are constructing your own house or are purchasing one from a reputed builder, ensure that the point for split a/c installation is given correctly. In out case, we assume that the builder expected us to install our outdoor unit over the window sill in the bedroom. This arrangement is feasible only in independent houses with single or double storey setups. For an apartment that has more than three floors, this arrangement is downright pig-headedness and the provision for split is as good as not given. It makes no economic sense for us to have heaved the outdoor unit on the window sill of our third floor apartment as installation and maintanence costs into the future would be exhorbitant. The other aspect I can’t seem to understand is why can’t we find better way sto avoid this drilling? It is such a messy job. I am sure, if thought properly one can come up with alternatives to avoid mess in the future. 

So, with some ingenuity from our electrician, loads of drilling and further permutation and combinations have now made us the brave the rest of the summer heat with our new Samsung Split Air conditioner.