Nirmal Diary - Part 1

It has finally happened. After 23 hours of tiring journey from Montreal to Mumbai and a couple of weeks stay in the home town I have finally stationed myself at 19.06 N and 78.25 E. It is damn hot here. The place is in the northern most district called Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh. Adilabad is THE district of forest. 43 % of the district is a reserve forest area (National Average is around 23, I am told by the District Forest Officer). I lived at the guest house for a month before I got my apartment. But before I share the school experiences, here the first impressions of an amateur educator :-)

India Shining: Myth or Reality

A lot has been said about the rising and shining India. The electronic and the print media show and print some numbers called sensex and inflation rate every day and we in cities bulge with pride after glancing at the numbers which most of us do not understand. We discuss and celebrate those numbers as success stories with our families in drawing halls, with colleagues on coffee tables, with friends (with a glasses of alcoholic drinks ("perhaps")) without knowing what they really mean. And it does give us a feeling of being an intellectual. And yeah....we also talk about how we should make the villages rise and share the glory of cities. PERIOD. It all ends there with a dinner, a coffee, and a beer. But after seeing this part of India, the projected success appears HOLLOW and gives me a feeling of hallucination. It irritates me to see the non-existant infrastructure required for a civilised life. The English robbed this country for almost 200 years and left. The remains are being settled by the petty politicians. And they are having a free hand in fooling the people with literacy rate so low and the SO CALLED middle class intellectuals busy in debates on coffee tables and unenthusiastic to vote.

I do not know. I might be wrong. But the root cause of all this is EDUCATION. So it is important that we give the same quality education in remotest village as is accessible to city. So atleast at present the "Shining India" motto appears a myth to me.

The First Acquaintances

Let me introduce you to some people I got introduced to during my stay at the guest house.


Rajanna: He was my cook for a month during my stay in the guest house. He is from Palsi - a small village on the border of Maharashtra and Andhra. He can speak marathi. So gives me a good feeling. Rajanna is around 45 and is a hard working man. He really makes good food


Mubashir: My driver. He is 22 year old and cool guy. Speaks Hyderabadi hindi along with telugu. He taught me that in Hyderabadi hindi bus is pronounced as "Busaan" and road as "Roadaan". In fact I have realised that many words in Hyderabadi hindi end with that "aan".

Kishore: He is a local bloke trying to make his career in local politics.

Rukmesh is accountant and Mahendra is office clerk. Chinnaya, Narayan, Sayanna are the attenders in the school.

The School

The school is sorrounded by the Sahyadri mountain range and dense forest. It becomes really beautiful when it rains. After the rains many birds come on the school ground in search of insects. I have identified - Indian Robin, Wagtail, Red Wattled Lapwing, Drongos, Bee-eaters. Few days ago I have also seen Indian Roller. There is a poultry farm of King-Fishers - Literally. The school is sorrounded by rice and corn fields.

Wah Taj!!!

Today on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year '07, they declared the new 7 wonders of the world. And the list is:

1. Chichen Itza (Mexico)

2. Christ, The Redeemer (Brazil)

3. Machu Picchu (Peru)

4. Petra (Jordan)

5. The Colosseum (Italy)

6. The Great Wall (China)

7. The Taj Mahal (India)

The selection was based on a popular vote. Even I voted - And being an Indian I obviously voted for The Taj Mahal despite the fact that I have not been to Agra. (But now I hope to visit Agra soon.)

I had put the topic and information about the voting on my school's community on Orkut. A couple of opinions were written which opposed the vote for The Taj. The reasons were as follows:

1. It reminded us of the Moghul invasion.

2. The Taj was built on a Shiva temple.

I would like to voice my opinion about the two reasons today.

Reason 1: "It reminds us of the Moghul invasion."

First of all I seriously doubt the intensity of the reason expressed by this guy. Nevertheless the reason just demonstrates the close mindedness. By this mode of logic all the monuments which have been built by those who attacked and/or ruled India should be hated. Also the systems which they brought in and which have had a positive effect on India should also be disliked. Now the funny part is that the guy asked to vote for Angkor temple (Combodia) conveniently forgetting that perhaps his ancestors might have attacked Combodia destroyed the local beliefs existing at that time and set up new belief system and then built Angkor temple in Combodia. This cycle of attacks and establishment of new system has been a part of the world history.

My point is simple and clear. Now we live in a free country and all these monuments are treasures of our past and should be preserved so that the next generations can see these monuments. They will remind us of the invaders and force us to learn some lessons from our past mistakes. So we should not loose the great opportunity of preserving them and use these very monuments to make some money. This is what I have observed in the west. The Americans or the Canadians have a history of few hundred years and yet they preserve it with pride. Why cannot we ?

(I just hope and pray (literally) that this new declaration will help Agra develop its infrastructure.)

2. "The Taj was built on Shiva temple"

This may be or may not be true. I am not aware of the fact but I doubt if Shiva temple (if it at all existed) would be as popular as the Taj. We should seriously get over this fanaticism and move ahead and make money using The Taj. Period.

Indian films and songs

I am down today : Ruk jaana nahin tu kahin haar ke..
I need motivation: Aye saallaa...abhi abhi..hua yankee..
I want to be romantic: Chehera hai ya chaand khila hai..
I want to fill myself with patriotism: Yeh desh hai veer jawano kaa..
I wished to express my friendship: Yeh dosti..hum nahi..
And the list is ENDLESS (literally). There is a song for each and every occassion (literally).

It is a sheer coincidence that it is BOSS' birthday today as I decided to write this blog. It is 27 June - But BOSS ? Who is the BOSS ? Hey!!!! We have a song to solve that mystery too...BOSS kaun tha malum hai kya ? BOSS kaun hai malum hai kya ? (Jhankar beats starring Sanjay Suri, Juhi Chawla and cool dude Rahul Bose. Music directors: Vishal-Shekhar). And the BOSS is R.D. Burman a.k.a. Panchamda. Man.. it drives me crazy when I hear his evergreen and immortal creations. Remember - Chura liya hai dil ne jo....OR Yeh Jawanee....Yeh Deewani....OR Chingari koi bhadke....He was a true legend. Hindi films and songs have made our lives so colourful.

But read this dialogue I hear many times when I have discussions about hindi films. "HUH!! I hate Bollywood movies. It is the same theme again and again and so much running round the trees. I do not watch them. I 'to baba' like only Hollywood movies. They are so hepp"- Many people say this. I just smile on such comments. Of course its a matter of personal opinions but they are comparing apples with oranges. So it is irrational - if not stupid - to compare Hollywood with our film industry. We have a unique style of making films - Films with songs. Culturally we are so different. And by this I do not mean to demean Hollywood. They indeed make great movies undoubtedly but our movies have totally different flavour - the local flavour - the indian flavour. I mean McDonalds burger is OK sometimes but legendary Wada Paav and cutting chai or Uttappa and cutting chai are for all seasons.

Some of my favourite movies which I can watch anytime are :
Chupke Chupke - A typical Hrishikesh Mukherjee movie. I mean the theme cannot be simpler than the one in this movie. I have seen it so many times but still it is like evergreen. Dr. Parimal Tripathi, Sulekha Chaturvedi, Professor Sukumar Sinha, Vasudha Kumar, Raghav bhaiyaa, Haripath bhaiyaa, James D'costa, Prashant are the characters I can relate to in so many situations.

I shall not speak in such details as Chupke Chupke as it is my favourite movie. But the other which fall is the same league for me are Khubsoorat, Chashm-e-baddoor, Choti si baat, Angoor, Golmaal, Abhimaan, Guddi, Rang Birangi, Jaane bhi do yaaron, CID, Kala Paani, Chalti ka naam gaadi and many more.

And though most- if not all - films have the same theme of a boy and a girl falling in love, I have continued to enjoy them for years and years. I have grown with hindi films. And my personal opinion is - "I LOVE MOVIES OF BOMBAY FILM INDUSTRY."

A new beginning

Finally, I have arrived. I was damn reluctant to start with blogging. But then, I read a friend's blog (Pallavi Kale to be more precise) and I thought that I should give blog a shot. Hopefully with practice, I hope to improve my writing skills. And that is my sole motive behind blogging. I would not want this blog to look like an autobiography because I feel whenever one writes one, there is inevitably a lot of filtering of thoughts in an attempt to show how great (or modest) one is. I would just like to put my views and thoughts on varied topics (hopefully without filteration). So cheers!!! I say to myself for this new interesting beginning.