Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my first ever blog interview. Trying to hold in the excitement, I direct you to this webspace and request you to read up and tell me what you think of it.

I knew I should have got my “thank you speech” ready when I heard from them. Its too late now so I am just going to have to say  a simple but heartfelt thank you to the team that put together the interview and of course, all you blogging buddies ( you know who you are) without whom blogging wouldnt be half as fun as it is!

PS:Soli, IHM, Hitchy,Indy- with that interview, I am technically in your league now!

Not as dumb as you think. Here is a test to prove that.  Test courtsey  Monika’s blog. 

[] Gum has fallen out of your mouth when you were talking

[] Gum has fallen out of your mouth when you were NOT talking

[] You have run into a glass/screen door

[x] You have jumped out of a moving vehicle

You live in Bombay and use the public transport. You jump off moving vehicles all the time.

[x] You have thought of something funny while walking by yourself

[] Laughed, then watched people give you weird looks

[] You have run into a tree/bush.

[] You know that it IS possible to lick your elbow

[] You have tried to lick your elbow… a few times

[x] You never knew that the Alphabet and Twinkle Twinkle Little star have the same rhythm.

[x] You just tried to sing them.

[] You have tripped on your shoelace and fallen.

[] You have choked on your own spit .

[x] You have seen the Matrix and still don’t get it.

Did you understand it? Really understand it?

[] You’ve never seen the Matrix.

[] You type only with two fingers.

[x] You have accidentally caught something on fire

All the time in the kitchen.

[] You tried to drink out of a straw, but it went into your nose/eyes.

[] You have caught yourself drooling.

[] You have fallen asleep in class and fell outta your chair

[] Sometimes you just stop thinking

[x] You are telling a story and forget what you were talking about

Not a common occurrence but lets admit it, it has happened a few times.

[] People often shake their heads and walk away from you

[ ] You are often told to use your “inside voice”.

[x] You use your fingers to do simple math

Its just easier than fishing out a calculator or a cell phone.

[] You have eaten a bug ***YUCK!!!***

Err.. I am vegetarian.

[] You are taking this test when you should be doing something more important ..

Oh YEAH! I stopped important work to do this. I am seriously pushing deadlines here.

[x] You have put your clothes on backwards or inside out, and didn’t realize it

But I dint wear it outside the house, so  it shouldnt really count.

[] You’ve looked all over for something and realized it was in your hand

[] You have run around naked in your house.

[] You repost bulletins because you are scared that what they say will happen to you if you don’t.

[] You break a lot of things.

[] Your friends know not to use big words around you.

[] You tilt your head when you’re confused

[ x] You have fallen out of your chair before

Someone dragged it from under me. Does that count ?

[] When you’re lying in bed, you try to find pictures in the texture of the ceiling or wall

[] The word “ummmmm” is used many times a day.

If you convert the score  into percentage (10/37 *100 ) it comes to  27%. Not an impressive figure (thankfully) but somethings are so worth their “time pass” value!

You have to be totally unimaginative , not to mention shameless, to be indulging in the kind of plagiarism that you do. Yes, I am talking to you, Shet Al Shah- an indian centre in Oregon. You have literally  copy-pasted each and every word Indian Home Maker wrote on her blog. You even call your blog Indian Homemaking.What I dont understand is  how you are going to meet your objectives, and let me quote here-

Our mission is to populate Indian culture in United States and to facilitate intecultural dialog between American and Asian cultures.

We conduct seminars, trainings, lectures and other events to achieve these goals.

Our community includes more than 500 000 Indians, which immigrated to Oregon from different Indian provinces.

One of our main duties is to built effective collaboration between Indian programmers from Bangalor (Indian Silicon Valley) and US IT Compaines.

by copying some one else’s work. I dont even see the connect between what IHM writes and the promotion of Indian culture in US. I dont think you know this, so I thought I should sound you off. The blog world is like a family. We stand up for each other. We stand up against plagerism. If you dont want us fellow bloggers to hunt you down( dont think your living in US would matter. We have contact everywhere.) I think it would be wise idea for you to delete your blog. Now.

Best wishes,

Mandira

I dislike abrupt endings. No, I  hate abrupt endings. Whatever it may be that the endings are  ending, they have to end it properly.  I don’t like it if  the ending  doesn’t feel complete. I don’t like book that leave the story hanging, half-said, in the end expecting the reader  to draw her own conclusions. Or movies that  are inconclusive in the end.Things have to be complete. I don’t even like incomplete menus that don’t describe to you exactly what the dish is.  Not surprising then that I was disgustedly annoyed when my much-awaited-for- vacation got cut to a measly 3 days. Especially since I have moved from “I basically like my job” to  “Who am I kidding? I am hating it here” some months back and was dying for  a break. A vacation cut short basically means you end up going to office earlier than you had planned. Now, for worker bees like me, whose life runs in a clockwork like fashion (partly because of living in a city  like Mumbai), a vacation is a very important thing. It means freedom- from waking up early in the morning, from running to catch the bus, from spending precious time counting cars stuck in a traffic jam, from deadlines, from weird colleagues. And you know it as well as I do, you take freedom away from anyone, that person is guaranteed to be very, very unhappy.

Unhappy or not, I am back in the city. Back at work. The reason for cutting the trip short was fairly simple and straight forward. We fell ill. Pretty badly. Some rocking South Indian stomach bug found us and decided he liked us so much that he dint want to leave  us. Good for him, because he found a nice, cosy place to reside in. Terrible for us because our health began spiralling out of control so fast that at one point I actually asked aloud “I am not dying, am I ?” We booked ourselves on the next available flight even while  at the back of my head I kept thinking – I cant be so ill. I am on a vacation. I am sure I will be fine in a day or two.  But when you are as sick as we were, you don’t get fine in a day or two. And as sensible human beings instead of hunting for doctors in an unfamiliar city, you head back home. When you are sick you like familiarly- the familiar face of your family physician, the next-door chemist who makes quick home deliveries, the  comforts of your home.  It makes you feel infinitely more comfortable and somehow in better control of the situation. After multiple doses of horrid tasting antibiotics, we are fine now, which is why I am in office wondering what bad karma from my past life caught up with me on my trip to force me back to work early. I could have not reported to work. No one expected me this early anyway. But PLs  are important things. They are what you use to buy you days of freedom from the company. So I like to save ‘em up. Sorta like a insurance for future. So that the next time work gets to me, I have enough PLs to just (totally irresponsibly) take off.

I don’t have pictures to share. The one day that I was there, hale and hearty, I dint take any. I was going to take pictures in the remaining ten days. If you are super keen (and if you dint follow this blog 2 years back), you could take a look at some pictures that were taken on the last trip to Pondicherry.

On the sunny side, I am home and am not going to be travelling anywhere for sometime now. Till December. That’s when I attend a dear friends wedding. Naturally that trip, I am looking forward to. The health is improving and so it improves so does my temperament and that’s a very good thing for everyone around me.  I am reading Eat Pray Love on the suggestion of a friend and I am loving it( and her for suggesting it).  I am also praying, as suggested by the book and I am trying real hard to love the job that has been God ordained for me in this life time. What I am not doing is eating indulgently as suggested by the book. Have to care for that sensitive, beaten up stomach , you see.

NB: If you think I have over done the italics in this post, blame the book.

I am  going for a week long vacation. See you soon.

Thats what we are going to do in this post. We are going to begin with pictures and stories of Himachal, move on to blog awards and wrap it up with Diwali wishes!

This post is so long due that the contents seemed too stale to write about. But this blog is also about documenting my life. Toh late hi sahi, document to kar hi dena chahiye! So lets get started…

I  stop over at Delhi on my way to Solan. Delhi is a familiar city. Familiar in the sense that it still feels the same. It has changed the way it look considerably in the 6 or 7 years that I have been away. The roads are different,more congested.Landmarks have changed. There are fly overs everywhere. CP now looks like something else all together. With massive scale renovation/redevelopment work on for the Games(which, having seen the state of, I can assure you will not be done  in time) it  just doesnt look like the CP I knew. I met up with old friends at Dehli and had a rocking time! There are some friends with whom it doesnt matter how far apart you live, how many years have gone by without meeting in person. All you have to do is meet and it feels just like old times. Conversation flows easily. As does the coffee if you dont want to be thrown out of  Cafe Coffee Day. I seriously over dosed on coffee that day. But what is a little over dosing, I ask you? It was all for a good cause.

Himachal was everything I remembered it to be. The hills were green, the sky a clear blue, dotted with cottony clouds and the children pretty and energetic. Let me share with you some pictures that I took during the visit.

The schools in Himachal Pradesh are in a much better condition than the schools in the other states I have seen. The literacy level in the state is  general good and the economic condition of people is good too. I havent seen the kind of poverty I have seen in say interior Maharashtra  anywhere in Himachal. I am told Government policies support development. That is not to say that there arent any problems in the state or in the education being offered to the children. The terrain is itself a challenge. Five days of walking up and down mountains exhausted me. And I had a car to drop me to the nearest motorable place. Its obviously not easy for children and teachers to walk everyday to the school. The distances are also  much larger than there are in the plain. In Himachal  population is quite less and it is scattered. So you will find one tiny cluster of huts on one hill and another on the next hill. And the total population  of this scattered village will be served by one Govt. school somewhere on either of the two hills. So if you want to go to school everyday, its very likely that you will have to walk a lot to get there!The Government allots teachers as per the population of the school. So if yous school has 60 kids ranging from calss 1 to 5, you will get only 2 teachers. Thats means one teacher will be handling more than one class at a time. Multi grade teaching has its advantages but from what I observed, its also has its challenges!

That, btw, is a shot of one of the Government primary schools.

Thats a picture of two girls trying to solve a maths paper.

The LPG cylinder hasnt reached all villages in Himachal. In some they still cook the mid day meal the old fashioned way- on firewood.The ladies in the pink is the one in-charge of preparing the meal. When  I approached the “kitchen shed” with my camera two other ladies said they wanted to join in and be a part of the picture. How could I refuse?

This was a multi grade class with children of class 2,3 and 4 sitting together. With only one teacher, utter chaos prevailed. Himachal has a very interesting Government policy. On rakhi, karvachauth and bhaiduj, only lady teachers are given a day off. Women also get to travel on State Transport buses for free. We visited this particular school on karvachauth. One look at this class and we knew how terribly the solitary male teacher was trying to keep the classes running. He wasnt able to do much but I have to admit he was trying.

This was one of the sweetest girls I met.Amidst the chaos, she had decided she wanted to learn. So while other kids were busy looking out of the window, escaping from the class on the excuse of wanting to drink water, playing games instead of finished learning tasks given and basically adding to the general pandermonium, she was sitting with her siyahi and takhti, writing numbers 1 to 100.Nothing broke her concentration. She wasnt interested in playing nor did she get distracted by those who were. She just wanted to write her numbers.

Do you see those 4 dots at the end of the path? Thats children racing throught the field at the end of a busy school day. They ran so fast that the pretty much reached the end of the path by the time I got my camera out. Made me wonder i whether it was the school that was so bad or if it was the mother at home that was so attractive…

These little guys werent in any rush to get home. They stopped  on the way to chat for a bit.

In place of apricots, I got corn this time. Having gorged on the apricots last time, I sorely missed them this time around. Corn wasnt a good enough substitute for the delicious apricots. October is corn seasion, so there was corn everywhere! In the fields, in the homes drying on the terrace, in flour mills getting convert into makai ka atta and in the markets for sale. Just about everywhere! If you want to eat some corn, all you have to do is stop by a house where the corns cobs are being dried in the sun and speak to the family for a few minutes.  As hospitable as Himachalis are you are sure to get a cup of tea and a roasted corn cob (or two!). I have found the Himachalis are essentially simple , uncomplicated people. You can stop by anyone’s house and you will be invited in and served tea . It doesnt matter whether or not they know you, they will be warm and friendly towards you. To me Himachalis come across as content people. They seem to be happy with what they have got and are undemanding.  May be its the terrain that makes them that way. In the plains  life is much easier so we want more, expect more. Its also easier to get what we want. In the hills life is tougher so you learn to appreciate what you’ve got.

I have come to believe that the mountains have a special property- that of viberating peace and calm. I have traveled a fair bit and I am yet to find a place that has the palpable silence that prevails in the mountains. You can hear the silence in the mountains and thats a wonderful thing. It is also a little scary because we are used to so much noise and activity.

We finished our work in the 5 days that were alloted to us and de-toured to Shimla on our return journey. Do you want to know what the city made me realise? Never visit a city at 8 am. There is nothing you can do there if you reach so early. Other than roam the streets and take random touristy pictures. Which is exactly what we were forced to do. As per our travel schedule we werent supposed to go to Shimla at all but we begged and pleaded till we got our heart’s desire- a  de-tour to Shimla with 3 hours to spend as we liked in the city. So what if the 3 hours we got were from 8 am to 11 am? Had we known nothing, and I mean nothing functions there in the early mornings(not even eating joints) we might have changed our minds.

Shimla was much colder than we had expected it to be and we were so unprepared for the weather.  Thats why in our light shawls we f-r-o-z-e . Inadequate woolens and the hunger pangs were a horrible combination, I tell you.

We figured we couldnt do much(besides watching children in their blazers walk to school) so we  asked for directions and found our way to Mall road. All in the hope  that the most happening place in Shimla would have at least one or two eating places and shops functioning at such an early hour. Mall Road is to Shimla what town is to Bombay. The most hep and happening street in Shimla has all the big brands you can think of- mostly shoes, apparel and some handicrafts.

The   Christ Church is one of the most famous churches of Shimla and is  situated very close to Mall road. I think this  church featured in the movie Black, but I am not sure. Its is a  beautiful structure. I wanted to go in and say a prayer but it was locked.

I found this gorgeous Chinar tree on the Mall road. This was the first time ever that I saw a Chinar tree and  I was unduly excited about it, much to my colleague’s embarassment. The board in front of  the tree said ” Rare Chinar Tree”, I had ever reason to be excited about the tree, dint I?

Another shot of the Chinar- the leaves against the sky. Dont miss the  fading moon.

Shimla has lots of  lovely Colonial structures. Its a remainder of the British rule and a beautiful one at that.  Its also what gives Shimla is character. That and the hundreds of schools kids. I dont know about you, but I have always associated two things with Shimla- the British summer capital  and schools.

I didnt get to spend too much time analysing the structures closely. To be honest I was too busy  admiring them and getting my pictures taken against their backdrop but they seemed to look pretty well maintained. All Government offices are in these pretty structure as are many shops.

This is the state library on Mall road. I love the sloping roofs. They are so typically pahadi .

We walked up and down the Mall road and kept asking people when the shops will open. Trust me on this one, if you ever reach Shimla at 8 am and are waiting  for the city to wake up and the shops to open, donot believe people when they tell “nau- sade nau tak dukanain khulainge” becase no shop opens at nau-sade nau.Contrary to what people willmake you beleive, you have to wait till 11 to see the shutters go up. We couldnt  find any of the nice looking  restaurants open, so we settled to have breakfast at the Indian Coffee Shop. Located at the fag end of the Mall road, the Indian Coffee Shop  was  established sometime very, very long ago. The walls and ceiling will tell you that.  While I loved the look of the place, I dint like the food  too much. The idli bordered on being rock hard,the sambhar had radish in it and the coffee was so too strong that you needed a stomach of steel to digest it. But still, it was the only eating place open at 9.30 and it did get some fuel in our bodies.

By the time Shimla got started,  it was already 11 and we had to get back on track and move towards Chandigarh. We dint do too much in the capital of Shimla- we just walked a lot and ate a yucky breakfast, but I am still glad I got to see the city.

Shimla is a pretty city but I am sure it used to be prettier. Its now very crowded, polluted and touristy. From a nice hill station it has turned into a commerial city thriving on tourism. Thats something I dint like too much but as time passes city change and there is no way to stop them , is there?

That was Himachal, now for the awards. Putting these up has been long due,Lively. Thank you for the award. I accept them with much gratitude.

Its 11.30 pm so technically its still Diwali. Happy Diwali everyone!!!! I wish this Diwali brings you all lots of prosperity and happiness.

Image source:google images.

PS: I am traveling again this coming week. No, its not for work. Its a vacation. To my favouritest place in the world.:)

Himachal Pradesh. For a week  to complete part -II of this assignment. As much as travel excites me, this time I am in no mood to go anywhere. Traveling back to back takes the fun out of traveling. Plus Himachal is familiar and  so I am thinking there wouldnt be too  much new that I would discover on my second trip. But the slave of the company that I am, I have no choice.  I shall go and finish up work quickly and get back soon! 

PS: Thanks so much for the awards Lively. Will put them up when I get back.

how the bus is late when I am early and early when I am late.

how relatives decide to descend on us the very weekend I plan a dinner out with the family. And how the same relatives are unavailable on days I want to just drop by and say hi.

how when I am dying to find a new job, I find none. And when I am happily settled in the one I have, friends,family and job sites send me great looking  job opportunites by the dozen.

how the day I am lazy to take food from home, the canteen serves the worst menu of the week- left over vegetables parcelled off as mili-juli sabzi, rajma with coconut(ever eaten that?),corn raita, paneer masala (a few pieces of paneer floating in a red tasteless curry), a boring onion-tomato-cucumber salad(with a high proportion of onions) and some liquidy sweet dish made of sabudana.

how the maid choses to take an unannounced  chhutti on the Sunday that I decide I want to spend doing nothing.

how net banking stubbornly refuses to work for me forcing me to make trips to the bank (does anyone physically go to the bank these days?) but works with perfect ease for everyone else.

how I meet traffic jams the day I want to reach home early, which is basically every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

how when I fill up buckets and buckets of water in an attempt to deal with the Municipal Corporation announcement of  a water cut ,I discover there is no cut at all. And when I operate on my past expience and don’t fill up any buckets, the Municipality rewards me with a 12 hour water cut.

how when my baking skills actually begin to get better, everyone at home goes on a weight managment spree when no one worried an iota about their weight when I was dishing out inedible dishes by the dozen.

how I am forced to travel when I would rather stay in town. And when I am bored stiff of sitting in office, I am not given the opportunity to travel. Btw, another trip is coming up at the end of the week . I tell you, I am so done  with traveling for work.

Oh I could go on and on.. examples of  how much control I have over my life. When I want this, I get that. When I want that, I get this!  I think this songs compliments my situation perfectly.

Here’s another song that has caught my attention. Its not the greatest song ever made, but it is peppy.

Mandira aka Churningthewordmill has no life. She is a slave of the organisation she works for. She shall re-surface if and when she breaks free from the shackles of slavery.

rather fun is over.  Thats the best part about making short trips. You make your exit before the place or the food begins to get to you. You see the nice part and say your goodbyes. The two day trip to Mount Abu was good for exactly those reasons. We spent most of the time learning to “build teams” and spent the remaining exploring the city.  Please dont ask where we stayed. It was by far the funniest sounding name for a hotel. Ok, if you promise to not laugh, I shall share the name with you. Deal? Ok? Ok. The hotel was called Chacha’s Inn and I am yet to figure out why. May be someone chacha decided to open the hotel and so he named it thus. But that doesnt make sense.Why would he call it “chacha’s inn” and not “bansilal’s inn” or something like that? Contrary to what the website (yes, the Inn has its own website) projected, the rooms in the Inn were not done up in ghastly red and brown nor was the conference room equipped with plastic Neelkamal chairs. All was surprisingly good except for the food. That had enough oil for me to strain and sell in the local evening haat. After hearning the name of the hotel and browsing through the misguiding website, we were sure we were going to be put up in a hole in the wall kinda place. Thankfully it wasnt so.

I could talk about the training, but who would be interested in reading that? I think it should suffice to say we can all now safely claim to be “team players” that function on the “win-win” philosophy. Lets move on to the pictures.

How can I resist capturing flowers? We see so few of them in Bombay. This one is a hybiscus, Hitchwriter. I am sure.  Dont miss the early morning dew drops  on the petals.

The musicians.  The enthusiastic trio were a part of what I would like to call “the cultural window”. Organised  by the hotel, they kept us enthralled with popular marwari songs in the late evening. All  the songs sounded  familiar but I couldnt follow the lyrics of any. The only part I got was “kesaria , padharo mhare desh” The musicians were very good. Sang from the heart. Got me tapping my foot, smiling in appreciation.I even caught them on video. But WP doesnt let me upload the files.

The young magician. All of 17 (I suspect) he had his act together. I tried very hard to identify the tricks to his craft but couldnt. his repertior of tricks was limited, but what he did, he did well. He made pebbles disappear and reappear, swallowed iron balls, pulled out coins from the air, discovered hidden pigeons in an empty basket, all the while keeping a running commentary on. Here’s some trivia for you-Raveena (sic) Dundun is  our magician’s favourite actress and Bombay his favourite city. Each time he needed an actress or a city to build a story around his trick, which btw he did remarkably well, he would invariably use these names.

How can you have a cultural evening in Rajasthan without puppets ? Its just not possible.  This is the only shot I got when things werent moving so fast that they couldnt be caught in a frame.

The helper. He looked like the child of the puppeteer. He was the sweetest, most helpful member of the troop. He greeted us when we came, brought out the chairs for us, beamed when we clapped our hands at the performances and generally seemed to be a very happy person. He might have seen the puppet show a hundred times, but as this picture shows, story telling through puppets still had him enraptured.

I love the traditional paintings of Rajasthan with their rajas, horses, elephants and beautiful ladies with doe like eyes dressed in ghagharas. Found this painted on one of the external walls of the hotel.

We were set free on the last day of the trip to see the city as a part of a guided tour and do a bit of shopping, if we so desired.This was our first stop- the Achalgrah Shiva temple. According to the priest, the temple was made in the Treta yug and has  what is symbolically believed to be the toe of Shiva.  It also has a bottomless pit which doesnt fill up or over flow no matter how much water you pour down it. This impressive Nandi bail is the first thing you notice as you enter the temple. Its cast in brass and is bright and shiny with eyes that seem to speak to you.

One of the pillars of the temple.

The enterance of the temple. Dont miss the intricate carving on marble. We visited the Peace Garden after this temple and then went to the Dilwara temple.  If you ask me,the Peace Garden was nothing much to write home about.  Its just a very big garden! Its managed and owned by the Brahma Kumaris, who incidentally have their headquarters in Mount Abu, and though its a popular tourist spot, I  dint  really enjoy my visit down the paved , practically never ending path around the garden.

The Dilwara Temples on the other hand are nothing short of breathtaking.  If you ever visit Mount Abu ,make sure you find the time to visit these temples. I remember being awestruck when I saw the Taj Mahal for the first time and Dilwara gave me the same kind of feeling.  You have to see the carving to believe it. How all the carving was done hundreds of years back, is beyond my imagination. I have never seen such intricate work. The carving is everywhere- on the walls, the pillars, the corridors, the roof and its amazingly detailed. For example it doenst just have the figure of a person. Its a figure  holding a specific facial expression, wearing fine jewellery and clothes in which each fold can be identified. There is not a sinlge square inch of marble that has been left untouched and  plain. The elaborate white marble carving and the serene statues of Lord Mahavir make this temple a must see. This is a temple you will not easily forget. And thats a good things since the temple authorities no longer allow you to photograph it.

I wish this picture had turned out clearer. Right under the tree is a smooth rock shaped into a C due to years and years of gradual weathering. Mount Abu is situated on the Aravali range-one of the oldest ranges in the country. In Mount Abu rocks like these are commonplace.

And now for the promised quiz. This is so simple that it shouldnt even qualify for a quiz. All you have to do is identify the drink in the bottle and tell me what its called. Whatever you do, dont look at the crate and say “Pepsi”!

Edited to add:  Another touristy place in Mount Abu is Nakki lake. I had to sacrifice seeing that for shopping. The guided tour took longer than expected and we had only 2 hours in hand. I convinced myself that Nakki lake would be quite like Naini lake and that buying something to take back home was more important than the lake.But the lake is supposed to be pretty and I am told it shouldnt be missed so you might want to fit that in your itinerary in case you ever visit.

I thought the quiz was a great idea. Hitchwriter thought it was a great idea to wrech my quiz. So he did all but declare the results. No, actually he did declare the results! Yup, that  was the picture of a cotton crop and Homecooked was the first one to guess it right. Homecooked, my friend, you are our official winner. Your virtual prize gift hamper shall be reaching you soon. Others who got the answer right were Hitchwriter (obviously!) Monika and copy-cat Craftyshines. I think I made this quiz a little too easy for you all. Be warned, the next one is not going to be so simple.  I am already  hunting for potential topics to formulate my quiz on. Hopefully my upcoming trip to Mount Abu will give me  some dope for the quiz.

I dont know why I bother unpacking at all. I am off to the hill station of Rajasthan for two days. This time its another staff training. The number of training modules they have been sending me for  this year would make anyone wonder if I am trainable at all!  I mean just how many times does one need to be trained? If I were to look at  my schedule, I’d say  at least one more time!

I was struck by a serious case of laziness. That’s the only valid excuse for being back home for 5 whole days and not posting. Or reading your posts for that matter. But I am making up for my tardiness now by jotting down a post and interspersing it with pictures. Pictures I had no interest in taking despite being egged on by Homecooked. You see rural Maharashtra is not new to me. I have made a couple of visits earlier so to me its no longer interesting from the point of view of taking pictures. I therefore dint make the effort to take my camera along with me. That’s how sure I was about not taking pictures. But what did I do when I went around the villages? I succumb to the desire of clicking a cute kid here, a green farm there. Sometimes people and places compel you to capture them. I love the mobile phones we have these days. They may be equipped with crappy 2 megapixel cameras like mine is, but they come in real handy in situations where one is unprepared.

So here I am laying out my slightly blurred, unclear pictures for you to see. Oh and just in case you were wondering what I was doing there, I was a part of a team trying to assess rural schools. I  like the way I make it sound all jazzy but truth be told, I was the bottom rung of the team. The time when I am no longer bottom rung, had better come soon I tell ya!

We made a visit  to one of the classes and visibly distracted the kids.I tried to surreptitiously grab a picture of the kids without disturbing them any further. The young fellow on the first bench caught me. As did the girl behind him. So much for being stealthy.

Chicks go to school. Literally.

Worn books. Kept along the teacher’s desk.

A chalk and duster. Its been ages since I  held a chalk in my hand.

A brightly painted wall. Quite a rarity in the schools.

Shoes! All neatly lined up. And tiny!! I think the size is just so cute!

This is how the mid-day meal is prepared in some of the schools. This one was in a tribal village.  LPG has obviously not make an entry here yet.

We took a short course in Kolami from these two children. Their teacher (on the right) was disinterested throughout the exchange. The kids however were very excited that someone was trying to learn their language. Dont ask me to repeat even one word they said. Their language is so tough that it made Sanskrit sound easy to me! Kolamis are a tribe found in parts of Maharashtra.

Wooden carts used to transport people and goods. The cattle thats hitched at the front of the cart was missing. Must have been grazing somewhere.

A temple in a tribal village.  Simple ways  to communicate with God. Who needs the trapping of large temples? Certainly not God. On the right corner in the village school.

Look carefully on eitherside of the hill. You will notice a line carrying “buckets”. Thats the supply chain of one of the local industries that mines limestone and trasports it via a overhead line. Quite neat,eh?

The rains havent been very good this year. They have actually been prety bad. The greenery you see on the surface is a result of the 4 or5  rain showers that they had in the season. Groundwater levels are very low in Vidharbha at the moment. This is a picture of a small dam in the area. As you can see it looks more like a pasture land than a dam.

But as with my trip to Rajsathan, I took the rain with me to Vidharbha too! It poured the day we reached and rained on and off on each subsequent day that we were there. It didnt rain hard enough to fill up the dam or recharge the wells, but it did rain  enough to make the weather comfortable.
A fallen compound leaf on the wet road.

An inverted gulmohar flower. Red, spotted with water droplets and beautiful.

Raindrops clinging to the leaves.

The reflection of trees in a puddle.

And now for a little quiz. This is a picture of a field. Look at the crop growing and tell me what it is. Let me give you a hint to make it easier for you. Think of crops that grow in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. The crop is non edible.  Come on now hazard a guess, the comments space is all yours!