China - the puppeteer

The white man's burden on the British shoulders to develop the eastern world could be seen in the railway tracks built by them in China. However, the wheel seems to have taken a different turn. The British approach towards China has an essence of mendicant in it.

The Chinese are in progress of gaining the same skills as the British had at a point in time. Like every other European country, the British also stand in the queue to secure a share in the Chinese market along with its booming investment across the seven seas. Straightforward as the Chinese are, the British Prime Minister was cold shouldered as he showed his concern towards the Tibetans. To top it all, Cameron also met the Dalai Lama. Fearing financial loss, Britain took to guard and approached china cap in hand. Obviously, Britain did not want to be left out when it came to Chinese foreign investment.

Britain’s shaky attitude towards Tibet changed overnight and Britain in turn was awarded the honour of being China’s best friend and most willing partner in the world.

It is evident not, that china has the game controls in its hand. The western powers led the game at one time and now its China’s turn to lead.

The language barrier

The issue of language has taken precedence over riots and economy for Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Samajwadi Party Chief insisted on the use of Hindi as a language for communication in the Parliament, and not English.
The goal of this demand seems unclear.The rationale for making Hindi the language of the Parliament is nothing more than restricting English language to the privileged few, including his son of course.Talking of 'double standards' of ministers, Singh might have forgotten the real use of 'language'.If the ministers go out to give speeches to the public in English, the whole purpose of communication would get defeated.
In a multi-lingual nation of ours, English acts as a common thread.Restricting the language of some would be equivalent to restricting their freedom of expression. The fight for the language in West Bengal did not really reap benefits for them.
For a globalized world that we live in, language- English, Hindi or French, must be seen as modes of communication rather than imperialism.And for Mr Yadav, he surely has better and more important questions in hand at present. 

Its not worth the drama..

"I think.. She should have at least said a 'hi!'"

"They shouldn't have done that!"

"How can someone even do this to me??? I was so good to him all this while!"

"I did so much, and this is what i get in return?"

Questions of this kind often cross our mind. Well, not just cross, many a times they even make us cry, go without sleep and even fast unto death and eventually change. The change is not of the thought, but we change ourselves!

"She did not call back! Okay! I won't call her ever again!"

"I did so much... but now... I will think only about myself and won't give a damn about others"

Well in all this, we changed ourselves, our habits, our inherent ideas and eventually our existence. All of this only because we expected a person or a group to react in a particular way. But if you come to think about it, you would say "no.. I don't expect anything from anyone"... But truly, we all do. We expect people to behave in a certain way. If I smile at someone, I expect that person to smile back. And that's where we get hurt. In this fraction of second that we spent on expecting a suitable reply, if we would have given the freedom to the person to do just as s/he feels like, we would be free of all the anger and agony. We mustn't forget that we cannot expect a person to be just as we are. Each person is different and we must accept and appreciate it. A person can respond only as much as his capabilities and capacities. It would be unjust on our part to expect from them.

We all remember how pressurized we felt when our parents/teachers expected a lot of marks from us in school.

Let's not burden anyone else with our expectations. And in all this, we might just start accepting each person just as they are, and in turn free ourselves of all the pain we underwent because we wanted him/her to be someone s/he wasn't.

My dustbin is dirty!

Early morning when I was fast asleep, the sweeper knocked the door.. Oh the plight of getting up and opening the door. Then staying up just to watch him sweep away small black insects from the floor, which had enjoyed the brilliance of my tube light all night. The tall half-bald yet young man, who is usually seen wearing his black and green striped t-shirt paired with black pants rolled up to his calves, emptied my dustbin. He also took away the plastic bag in it which was put there to protect my bin from getting dirty.
Phew! The room was clean, but the idea of sleeping again was out of my mind.

*Rise and Shine* Oh forget shine! Only my teeth shone for then. I went to the cook for some morning tea. Opened a pack of biscuits and headed towards my dustbin to throw the packet away. And the finicky me forgot the biscuit in search for a plastic bag for my dustbin. My cupboard, neighbor's cupboard, the kitchen, the whole house!! I called out for our hostel caretaker Mohan bhaiya. And then I was faced with the real issue. "जम्मू में प्लास्टिक नहीं होता। यहाँ बैन है " (Jammu doesn't have plastic bags. it is banned here). And that very moment my brain scanned through all my shopping ventures and I realized "अरे हाँ" (oh yes)!!
So here's a state that finally does follow the ban. I experienced this even more vividly, when on my visit to Bagh-e-Bahu (a huge garden with fountains and artificial waterfalls) I found NO PLASTIC BAG. Unlike New Delhi where you might just see more of plastic than water flowing in the waterfall or I may just call it plasticfall.
Unfortunately enough the good things about a state are seldom highlighted. Media today seems to be looking for all that's wrong about a place. Banning plastic bags is a phenomenal achievement. A large state like Delhi couldn't do it because its large, but an even larger state did it because it is responsible. Hats off to the people here.
All the people of the nation, (including myself, no preaching here) must once and for all give up the use of plastic bags. It definitely has become an important part of our lives. But just a small effort of making cloth bags or reusing newspapers as bags might just bring about the change!
Meanwhile I am looking for an alternative to protect my bin!

For those who really felt they should be the face of the change... here's a link for you. Learn how to make paper bags. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSfusvAP1vw

Do tell me if you really made it. 

The Last Judgment!

'The Day of Judgment' as put in the Holy Bible is a day when through Jesus Christ, God judges every single person who has ever lived on the earth. He would determine the worth of each individual. All the sins are accounted on that day. ‘Chitragupt’, a character from Indian mythology also serves the same purpose and finally decides the destiny of a person- heaven or hell.

An event recently reminded me of this idea. A simple window that acted as a judge to the sins of one and all. And all that one had to do, was just pass through it to prove that s/he deserved the arm-chair comfort of ‘heaven’.
Sudh Mahadev is the temple which stands for 2,800 years, and is located 120 kms from Jammu.  The temple is a home to a natural black marble Lingam, the Trident (Trishul) of Lord Shiva and mace believed to be that of Bheema, one of the five legendary Pandava brothers. The temple has a marble window that has attracted many to test their life.
For me, it was the test of the natural spring nearby that promised to wash away all the sins of a person. There was a Sita, who gave the ‘agni pareeksha’ and then there were some who gave the ‘khidki pareeksha’ as I would like to call it. I passed through the window, maybe that’s because I had washed myself in the ‘paap naashini baoli’ (sin destroyer spring) after the long journey. Some couldn’t, the reason could perhaps be that they should have taken some more time to wash themselves!

Trip to Sudh Mahadev through my lens... part 2

And generations saw it grow..

our open-air 'rajma'teria.. 

the three way process for the water to drain out

Men may come, and men may go.. but i stay on forever..

Shades of white! nature at its best..

An uncut diamond

'charas' (cannabis) anyone?

how majestic it stands..

From the branches of chinar..

two for joy!

Gourav and Rajiv playing gully cricket!

the destination.. 

the 3000 year old sculpture

The IIMC, Jammu gang! :) 

We had a great time exploring the unexplored. Hope you had fun reviewing it too.. :)

The trip to Sudh Mahadev through my lens..

Here we begin for the day..

The view.. as the sun peeps out of the fog

they refused to move, while we 'framed' our stories (journalism 24X7)

A natural spring 

samosas in the making...  Omar Abdullah loves them too! 

Good morning sweet shop serves all.. even the
CM..

Paap nashini baoli- a dip and all your 'paap' gets washed away. the water never stops flowing here. 

the chilling water is bound to refresh you.. by washing away thy sins! 

carvings on the wall of the baoli

phir chinaar ki shaakhon par.. panchi ghar apna banayenge. Rind posh maal gindane draaye no lo..

                                                                   
its not yet over... 

The Sunday that was..

Sundays that are usually spent sleeping, eating and sleeping again was spent with +Supriya . From morning till evening (literally), we were making this card....

It's packed and ready to be shipped! :D
*lovely feeling*

"Serving you the Love"

Aroma- serving you the love

Walking through the lane with motor mechanics on one side and a gutter flowing on the other, the idea of finding a 'nice' restaurant seemed to be getting blurred!

A right turn and I found myself standing in front of a tall three storeyed building with the restaurant's name shining bright- "Aroma- Multicuisine Family Restaurant." Climbing up the stairs you enter into a pink and yellow lit foyer, beautifully decorated with paintings and clay statues.
The courteous staff led me to a neatly done table. The one in the corner of the restaurant. Over here you could also see paintings by anonymous artists over the walls. Right across the room, the wall held a magnificent painting of the Eiffel Tower beautifully lit by dim incandescent lamps.
Because I already knew what I wanted, deciding on the menu wasn't difficult. "Nundru and naan" it was. Being in Jammu for the first time, the traditional dish is what I wanted to try. Nundru is the lotus stem. It is also known as kamal kakdi and bhein across India.

Nundru and naan. 

Nundru is one of the main vegetables used in the Kashmiri cuisine. In fact, it is known to be the heart of their food. By the time my dish was getting ready I caught up with the manager of the restaurant, Mr. Vijaya Kumar Menen. A middle aged man with saffron teeka welcomed me warmly. A self taught cook, and now manager of Aroma, was eager to have a tête-à-tête about his enterprise. It has been only five months to the establishment of this highly successful restaurant. The manager of 22 staff members, was tea stall chotu as a kid in Mumbai. An entrepreneur who does not believe in competition, compares his work with the growth of a coconut tree, he believes in making the roots stronger. the fruits would eventually follow. And with this, I could see my food coming. Leaving me to enjoy the food, he wished me all the best.  

Nundru was a vegetable, called a chutney here, made in curd. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the food was to-die-for. So much so, I also got it packed for my friends at the hostel. 

The food was indeed served with Love, just as its tag line says! 

Venue: Aroma, Opp. Bahu Plaza, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu. 

Government for the people! Really?

It was the celebration of Eid that ended with the fire of communalism.

Which religion can save them???   

Kishtwar, a town with a history of communal harmony, stood still under curfew for 12 days starting from August 9, 2013. Ironically, Eid along with Dusshehra was historically being celebrated in the common Chowgan ground, and at other times Hindu farmers offered their first harvest at the shrine of Shah Asraruddin Wali, a revered Muslim saint.

The town with a harmonious history couldn't possibly indulge in acts of pelting stones, torching houses and shops, looting etc. overnight. The escalation of a small frenzied demonstration into a massive riot seems to be a sustained move towards communal polarisation on the part of some political parties, aiming to make it in the forthcoming elections. The issue of communalism, one that the nation has experienced in 1947, was politicised. Political parties who gain from this polarisation seem to perpetrate the same. The blame game came into picture with the CM accusing the opposition of being ‘hypocrites’ when condemned for not being able to control the violence. When senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj urged the CM to look into the matter of Kishtwar, the CM’s response was quite strange, “injuries and damage has taken place on both the sides.” The reply was such even when Swaraj never mentioned anything of this sort.

Law and order collapsed, giving an opportunity to the communal elements to spread violence because of inaction of the police, for almost seven hours. Yet, the government claims to have responded right away, by summoning the Indian Army. The Army responded immediately, but the local administration took seven hours to order its deployment. Moreover, there were no arrests made for two days.

Damage has been done. To restore communal harmony that existed in Kishtwar, blame game has to stop and constructive steps to build communal harmony should be the forward march. Peace marches alone won’t help the cause of building peace, but a lot else needs to be done. Primary among these should be to immediately arrest the culprits, compensate those who have suffered losses and the proposed judicial commission’s report should be totally unbiased.

The link between the riots and forthcoming elections cannot be ignored. It’s time we wake up to the harsh realities of power, politics and anti-peace marches. 

Let's make peace!

‘Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.’ – Martin Luther

Zubin Mehta

On September 7, Zubin Mehta’s orchestra would drown the cacophony created by the politics in Kashmir. 

The politicians seem too worried about Jahangir ‘turning in his grave’ on the sound of pianos and violins instead of sitars. They seem to have never listened to, leave aside, enjoying music. The whole fuss about an artist performing in the Valley is targeted in just the wrong direction. 

The people in Kashmir have been protesting against AFSPA. The protests have been large. But the protests against Zubin Mehta’s show have been larger. The unity seen in the AFSPA agitation is less, as compared to the unity against the concert. The attacks against the show have become a war in itself. Each politician condemning the concert wants his sword mightier than the other. The protest against violence is justified. But protest against peace? Well that’s new!

In the fight for independence, the protestors seem to have deviated from their target. The separatists have made a non-issue into a main political issue for no rhyme or reason. All in all, the conversations of parties, in parties and between parties are mere noises that no one cares about. The show will happen and the world will listen. The others might consider just resting in peace!