हमारी हिन्दी

काफि दिनो से सोच रहा था कि हिन्दी पर कुछ लिखू पर हालात ये है कि ये ऐक पन्कति लिखने मे दो दिन लग गय है । पहले तो ऐक सोफटवेयर ढून्ढा फिर लिखना शुरु किया है । बस सीख रहा हू । पूरी कहानी के लिये अंगरेजि का सहारा लेता हू । हां पर कुछ दिनों मे जरूर हिन्दी मे पूरा लिखून्गा ।

What's the difference when you reach an airline counter in India and talk to the lady sitting there in pure Hindi and when you talk to her in fluent English? India has its own set of languages and anyone not from India would guess that we would get better response when speaking in Hindi. But perhaps the answer is totally opposite. You get to be treated with much more attention and care if you speak in english and what's better if you do it with an american accent.

Hindi is becoming the second sanskrit which is almost dead and totally dead for most part of India. I cannot count myself out of the people who have made this happen and I have also demonstrated by just not being able to type in hindi. Not because the keyboard is new but also because I have lost that fluency in hindi that I now have in English.

Recently I visited my grand parents place and read a few hindi papers. Its a fact that an English daily pays well and so draws those who can write good. So the one who has good writing skills prefers to have them in English. Hindi papers are just filled with gossip and casual writing about things.

I think its high time people do notice that Hindi was our language and encourage its use by reading a hindi daily and at the very least honour a person who speaks in it.

With hopes for hindi.

-apurv

DCH to Wayanad

Wonderful Wayanad! I'll start with the summary. It's a great retreat into the lap of nature with its beautiful hills, tea gardens and waterfalls. I think the fact that it has not been touched by many tourists till now leaves it in such un trammeled form. Now that's the word used for many things in Wayanad on many websites we must have looked at for places to see.So this travelogue is for my trip with my friends to Wayanad. New year's eve was approaching and all people start planning about the 31st night celebrations. A long time back we had a plan to go to Goa, a la DCH, but then as most long term plans fail this one was doomed to atleast for three of us. Some or the other thing put it off. In fact till 29th we were not sure we were going anywhere and if we were going to be sitting at home watching bollywood stars dance on TV and shout out new year, an indication for getting up and going to sleep. But somehow we had Rishi pumping up people to go to Goa again and so me and Anshul were ready to settle for something less demanding than that and so came the idea of Wayanad.

So we 3 hired an Indica with a driver whose name I could understand was something like Illinois. Anshul and Rishi had to come from Bangalore and the trip was to start early morning on Saturday. And so we did after a good Friday night at mysore with Raju chacha food. We were promptly up by 5 totally charged up for the trip that lay ahead. We had planned such an early start also because we could not book any hotel in advance. But as no one was in mood to back off (me perhaps the least) we had decided to go ahead with this and about the night we shall figure out there only.

Things were properly planned (most of them by instructions from Anshul). The things to carry along had been shopped on Friday night and so we had just to put them in a bag and carry. We also took a blanket for safety if we finally had to sleep in the taxi. With all things set we embarked on our journey. It was not such a wrong decision to start that early. We could see a wonderful sunrise in the morning on the way. Its one of those rare things you don't usually see in day to day life.

The journey on NH212 is mostly good as the highway is nicely made with lush green fields on either side of the road. It was a nice drive and we kept stopping wherever we could see things to click or for tea etc.

We had loads of printouts but no one had gone thru them thinking the other would have. As every software engineer does the collection of data was promptly done. So we used to sometimes pick it up and think of what all we should see and the data was so much to decide anything conclusively. In between we would ask Illinois and his advice would have something about him that would put you off from believing.

Our first halt came amidst confusion of stopping or not stopping. It was Muthanga wildlife sanctuary. This place is supposedly known for Tiger, Deers and Elephants predominantly. We took a forest jeep to go about 15 Kms inside the forest to try out luck spotting any of these. For about 5 kms we could not even see a single species of animals except each other in the jeep. And on top of that the Malyali speaking guide was trying to show anything that moved in the forest. The best was when he showed a chicken walking nearby. Anshul and he surely had a laugh to share for a long time after that. Luck could help us only to the level to be able to see deers and some wild pigs. It was a dusty ride with us standing out of the jeep and all our clothes were covered with dust and hairs had turned nice brown shade. Overall be cautious of this place, there are loads of good places lying ahead and this is an avoidable thing for people planning a visit to wayanad.
We made a move as soon as this was over. And our first target was Sultan Batheri. To get the perspective, Wayanad is a district totally in forests and hence there is no particular central place as we had imagined to go to. Its like you enter the forest and then there are small small areas of population and some resorts have sprung up there in the past 2-3 years. So Sultan Batheri is the first place nearest to Karnataka border where you'll find a few hotels and some population. So broadly the major population centres are :
Sultan Bathery, Kalpetta and perhaps Mananthavady (one we could not go). So the plan was to keep seeing places till its dark and then find a place to stay and sleep for the next day.
Hotel was assured by Illinois so we didn't bother.
So the next stop we decided was Edakkal Caves. These caves have carvings which are supposed to be more than 5000 years old. Edakkal needs about 2 km walk up the hill from the place where the cars can go. Do not miss the nice pineapple on the way we had it hesitating and then Anshul almost could eat one pineapple (we all did actually). They have a typical style of keeping pineapple slices with chilly, whatever it may be but it tasted wonderful and yes sweet. Caves allow entry only till 5 pm in the evening and require you to be in a mood to climb around 200 steps. So forget it in case you are coming after climbing Chembra or something. The steps are mostly guarded by railing. The view while climbing is spectacular and you can see the vast forest lying below. Kerela tourism has done its bit by putting "trainees" (I don't know where) batch wearing volunteers to help out people by telling the history of the place. They even help out people who find it difficult to climb up or come down. So as we come to know that the place had Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions, visual symbols and surprisingly one side of the cave wall still is un-deciphered. The cave is called edakkal as 'Eda' means between and 'Kal' means a rock in Malyalam. (pardon me their meanings are exchanged). There is a huge rock stuck on top of you and you can imagine your fate if it just slips over you. The site of the jungle from the telescope is also good. We walked down for our next destination.

The next destination was a dam nearby of which we could not find a motorable way. It did seem un-natural that an advertised tourist spot could not be reached by a car. Surprising!! But we gave up and decided to go see water. Meenamutty.

Now Meenamutty is the biggest waterfall of Wayanad. We could only reach till a point in the tea gardens which said Meenamutty 4 kms. I never believed that the main tourist attraction of Wayanad could not be approached beyond 4 km of it. Only later we were to discover that about 2 km of this stretch was into the most treacherous and steep decent to the water fall. Actually this place is better not recommended for the faint of the heart and especially girls wearing anything less flexible than a jeans. Falls is a wonderful sight and taking bath in the pool created near it (I mean don't even think of standing in its way) is a wonderful paisa wasool. Just staring at the might of the fall from beneath it is captivating. A boy from the coffee garden escorted us through this way to the falls and helped us get down till there. Without him it was impossible to reach there.

After that we searched for a resort and stayed. The room was ok kinds and considering that we were ready to sleep in the taxi if there was no room available due to new year rush, this was very good. There was a campfire and a tribal dance. Though I was sure these tribals were no other than people who would be cleaning our rooms in the morning.

Next morning was in a quite lake called Pookat lake near our resort. Lake offered kayaking and pedal boats. This is a small lake but with nice clean water and amidst nice surroundings. This place has a nice outlet for kerela local spices, honey etc. Worth purchasing all things in small quantities to try. Has weird offerings like Coconut jaggery, lemon tree oil, and a lot of powders with names in malyalam.

Then we went to Lakkidi. Its a view point on the side of the road. Offers great views of the valley. But I feel this place would look like heaven in rainy season (but then you'll surely miss Meenamutty falls).

After that was our return with all our talks of our college days, anshul's crushes and pahuja's marriage plans with me adding my silly anecdotes on songs. This was the DCH trip to Wayanad ,one which we all will remember for long.

Summit of Mysore

The state of the Mysore Chamundi Hills has been on my mind since my last visit to the hill with one of my friend from Hyderabad. One in which he was quite impressed by its calmness, and views it gives of the Mysore city. I have been fortunate enough to have taken rides or a walk up to the Chamundi at all times of the day. Thanks to the visitors who come to visit me and that I have this one thing to show them the in the various good things of Mysore. Its really a place that should not be missed. The mornings are a little foggy at times with the cold wind which gives a feeling of being on a nice hill station. The height of the hill is not that much at 3000 ft but it surely is one tall natural structure in the contrast to the surrounding flat city.
My friend as I said liked the nice ride up the hill and the sights it could give but the blot on this beauty was the dump of garbage lying just at the city view spot. There is a spot from where people love to park their vehicles and have a look at the vast landscape below. The spot also gives a nice sight of the city place and many a people flock to see the Sunday lighting of the palace from the top. It is a wonderful moment to see the palace lights switched on from the top. It almost shines like a jewel in the crown of Mysore. But unfortunately people bring loads of eatables, chips etc and in their fun leave all that at the place only. The spot now can be mistaken by someone to be a municipal dumping ground.
I appreciate the actions taken by the Chamundi hill caretakers to declare it a no plastic zone but the implementation is not perfect. It would be wrong to say that its totally inept as the roads are pretty clean up and yes its difficult to find plastics thrown everywhere but there are a few spots where its a sad sight.
In today's TOI I also see the article of stalling the ropeway up Chamundi. Its a wonderful idea and one which will go on to generate a lot of revenue for Chamundi hills and for protection of its surroundings. Increase in number of visitors on the hill top does not harm the flora and fauna. By introducing the ropeway the bus up Chamundi can be de-commissioned which actually pollutes the surroundings with loads of smoke and loud noise. This will not totally remove road traffic on the hill but reduce it drastically. Less traffic on the road means more environment friendly jungle around it. I feel this is one initiative which should not be stopped even at the costs it might take initially. Later the costs will surely be recovered from the tickets.
Some of the good things going on Chamundi is perhaps the INEP (Indo Norwegian Environment Program) which is aimed at conserving and increasing the natural resources of the hill. The only thing that should be taken care that while so many efforts are made in one direction we do not forget the basics. Installing dustbins at the visited tourist spots and also at other stray location will atleast prompt the aware to make use of them. For those who are careless enough would need to be educated of fined for enforcing a policy for clean and natural Chamundi hills.
With the good efforts of people and with the grace of Chamundeshwari, it’s not a miracle that we have a international tourist destination with rich natural flora and fauna and loads of good money flowing in from tourists.
Amen.
-aps

Bangalore needs no half measures

A recent visit of mine to Bangalore has prompted me to write this about Bangalore. The city is growing beyond its capacity. It has literally exploded with people. You get down at the railway station and the stairs up the bridge connecting the platforms can easily be interpreted by Golaiths as a stick on which ants are climbing up. This is the state with all the sticks up the bridge. Not long back there was a stampede on this station and yet no signs are visible of improvements.

It rains almost every evening and the roads are more pot holes than roads itself. How I wish everyone was so rich to be owning a Dicor and making his own road. The traffic problem in my view cannot be solved by half measures like making one ways etc. The city needs to expansion horizontally with bigger roads and flyovers. Cities like Mysore need to be connected well enough so that people opt to stay there and commute the 2 hour journey. It might sound funny but with a fast lane highway which might be coming in a few days the Mysore-Bangalore travel would be reduced to 2 hours and this is the time many of the people spend reaching the electronic city.

Its high time the care takers of Bangalore wake up from their slumber and sit down planning the future growth of the city. It has a great potential to be one of the most prosperous cities of India but only if the current problems are adressed. As the days is not far when people like me who enjoy the luxuries of a smaller town Mysore pack their bags and move for it.