Living with the Ganges

Ganges is Holy, no matter how much cultural or material dirt we add to it. I am not brought up with all authentic Brahmin Hindu customs and traditions, and I believe real religion and culture exist inside us.

Merely a view of Ganges can bring out the purity within our souls. I live in a place where people breathe the air of Ganges. The mornings are normally bright with the sun complementing the little waves of the flowing water. The afternoons glow with heat and light. And the evenings can convert one into a saint when the divineness of Ganges’s ether fuses with the sound of hymns and chantings from the temples located on the riverbank. Quietly the river flows, unless the tide adds some rashness to its disposition from time to time.

The Ganges will be here and shall continue flowing even if our existence changes its color to pitch-black. Like always we will never learn to be thankful.

Didn’t Want To Miss the Train

I was breathing heavily standing at the station entrance. I started from Hyderabad city at 2pm. My train to Howrah (West Bengal) was at 4pm. The 127K bus dropped me at the Secunderabad station (Andhra Pradesh) at 3.40pm. 


Apart from breathing heavily, walking unsteadily, and trying to get hold of my four jumbo over-sized bags; I was breathlessly cursing the bus driver. After all he was the second person responsible for my delayed arrival at the station. Well, the first person was me.

 Standing like a clueless lost kid I thought to myself, “What is it between girls and baggage?” 

 
I could no way drag my entire luggage all by myself to the Platform number 10, where the Falaknuma Express was already getting geared up for its 23 hours journey to Howrah (West Bengal). 



I’m sure for once, may be only for that moment, I hated the fact that I’m a girl. Why were my bags so heavy? Who asked me to pack my all useful and unnecessary belongings in them? I guess some questions are never answered. 

Looking at those four big pieces of amazing creations of man, my bags, I couldn’t help thinking, “Oh, everything in them is so important to me. How could I leave even one of them back in my paying guest house? That would have been so unfair.”, then again snapping myself out of that obsessed-with-my-possessions look of mine I continued thinking, “Gimme a break, those big annoying pieces of sh** are nothing but heavy boulders and my biggest problem at this instant”. 

My eyes started searching for paid help; a coolie was all I wished for at that moment. In the crowed I caught glimpses of sad faces, happy faces, busy workers and professionals, hands driving taxies, fingers busy managing their respective idli dosas, the analyzing eyes of the ticket collectors studying every face passing by, distant muted visuals of the people bargaining with taxi drivers, hands of young lovers tightly gripping each other, an aged man still waiting for someone who hasn’t arrived, a lady desperately trying some number in the STD booth, and many more similar and expected scenes in the train station. Sadly and surprisingly a coolie was no were in the scene. 

 

Fortunately or unfortunately my helpless and perplexed face grabbed attention of a few locals. I could see few of them staring at me. “Approaching them? Huh, that wouldn’t even be the last thing I would prefer to do.”, this was exactly what I thought to myself at that point of time but I guess people change very fast, before they even realize it. Or may be sometimes they purposely ignore the realization, even if they have realized somehow. 

“Fifteen minutes left? The yellow shirt guy or man, or whatever looks sober then the rest of them. I hope he can help”, this was exactly what I literally said the very next moment. Noticed the change in me? Anyways….

He was a middle aged man, looked more like a taxi tout. In normal situations I avoid these guys, getting irritated with their cries, “Taxi, taxi…madam taxi…”

Who knows, I might have done the same to him in the past but thank God, even if I had, he didn’t remember me.

As I was approaching him, I could clearly see his facial expression changing from an oh-that-poor-girl look to an oh-she-is-coming-here-why-me kind of look. The strange combination of his eventually bulging eyes and deepening frown didn’t discourage me however. 

I just took a few steps forward, somehow dragging my four beloved blunders and stood before him. With no delay I clearly enquired if he could help me to reach the last platform, he was still holding that why-me kind of expression. Somehow he managed to come out of it within a fraction of second and uttered, “Okadi second Maedam”, took an about turn and ran towards the other entrance of the station. Him getting lost in the crowd just after saying those three words, was not comforting at all, but, don’t know why, I tried to believe him. I checked my mobile again, the time was 3.50pm and I lost all hope. 

My self pity reached the extremity, due to helplessness and self criticism, for picking a wrong person at that crucial moment. I started collecting my baggage and took a deep breath to get mentally prepared for the weight lifting and walking with it part. I was just attempting to take the first step towards the stairway when I heard the same Okadi-second-Maedam voice shouting from a distance, “Maedam maedam, coolie.”

If I had a million dollar, I would have given him all of it at that very moment for doing this favor to me. And I couldn’t help thinking, “These guys are not bad, not all of them.

Next time such taxi touts bother me, I won’t be rude to them unless they make me mad with their nags. Hang on, they do it every time. Oh whatever...” 

The coolie like a real help adjusted the two suitcases over his tiny head and hung the two bags on his shoulders. His straight face didn’t make me feel guilty for making those bags and suitcases so heavy. He managed to be expressionless consistently on his way climbing the stairs, and walking through the foor-over bridge till he got inside my compartment. However, the Rs.50 I offered him finally changed his look; as usual he was not happy. 

I finally settled the deal with another twenty bugs. Don’t know about the rates but my financial condition was underrated at that juncture. What do you expect from someone who was staying alone without a job for last two months, with all her savings almost used up, and with a big problem of not letting her parents know about her financial condition?

With a long blast of horn signal the train started to move and I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and silently whispered, “Bbye Hyderabad, for now.”

       

(Please note: the pictures in this blog has been taken from the internet to make the blog more expressive, none of them are clicked by me. However, time to time I do share pictures with my blogs or simply photos taken by me. I will be adding few of them soon.)

Help!!!!!

I am not any animal activist or anything, but it’s just a few things that make me think about our harshness towards nature. I never find a reason why we have to be like this.

We forget to realize how tolerant the nature and other animals have been with us. We are not civilized yet; in fact we try to make our life good, that’s selfishness not civilization. Since the beginning of our psychological ‘humanization’ we have mostly focused only on our existence and requirements by means of various successful attempts and achievements in getting so called civilized. We used nature to feed our greed for civilization and wild animals had to pay. I don’t know if we can change this, but I regret being a human sometimes.

Today I just wanted to write about how I felt when I saw a few kids playing with a little puppy, poking and dirtying it with mud, and eventually killed it the same evening, but I guess I wrote few extra lines in the beginning.

I scolded the kids when I saw them surrounding the puppy in the park one day at around 4pm. The thin rickety puppy sitting silently, wasn’t making any sound. After my scolding the kids scattered and started playing their games in the same park. I finally had to leave, for, I was going to the market.

While coming back, I entered the park to make sure that the puppy was safe. He was obviously revisited by those kids, who were no where in the scene then.

I found the puppy almost covered with mud and coughing. Perhaps those kids made him swallow a chunk of mud. The mud was right inside his stomach and he was trying his best to vomit it out. I could not do anything, but just witness its pain. It simply died. It didn’t have to, did he?

He was not making noise, he was not attacking anyone, and he was not expecting any pity either. Just because few irresponsible humans needed some fun, he had to die.

What was that? Was that fun, just a game for those kids for that evening? We still call them human and they will grow up to become responsible or whatever citizens?

Even animals do not kill unless they are hungry.

My question is, if the parents give good moral education to their children could the kids still afford to be so pitiless? May be not, unless they are psychologically or morally sick.

Just two words ‘be empathetic’ can be easily taught, and believe it or not cruelty and aggressiveness increase if tolerated or not restricted. You love your children and give them a safe life... this makes sense for you. You love your children and teach them to respect life and create a safe environment for everyone and everything... this has to makes sense in every way.

Pictures from - internet

Being a Man is So Hard

We girls think our lives are so hard. Well, it’s time to accept the truth ladies. Women have always carried on their respective lives in merely a two dimensional world. Of course the other confirmed dimensions never ceased to exist, but with all respect I better keep science out of my piece of sheet as it’s right now helping me to communicate with you all. Internet is so scientific in every way you know.

I mean everyday chatting upgrades your language (English, et cetera) until it looks like an encrypted code; biology peeps every now and then with almost every new site you click; and mathematics can be actually visible on every social networking site, where the number always matters, be it friends and fans, or likes. However, let’s stick to our today’s topic ‘Getting rid of a tan is so hard’, oops, ‘Being a man is so hard’.

The two dimensional lives of women, are made of the ‘they love it’ part, and the ‘they loathe it’ part. Well that’s a LOL, for; I have always heard men saying, ‘women are so complex’. And I totally appreciate their being so cruelly honest with themselves. At least they are not scared of admitting their beliefs, even if those lack accuracy. This makes them so very ‘men’.

For guys, you won’t be surprised to know, there are three dimensions. They are the ‘they love it’ part, ‘they loath it’ part and, yah you are right, the ‘they’ve lost it’ part. No wonder if women fail to hack into the third dimension even in distant future.

The third dimension, the ‘lost it’ part is a stratum, where a man accepts and declares that he loses his sense of application of the right senses, even if God has spent some extra time on him to create a saint.

The third dimension is a ‘no conscience’ zone, so men feel lucky sometimes. Considering conscience directly proportional to saneness, one can say that insanity is found in abundance here. It’s the third dimension, where men will be men. They will be in love genuinely but could not help taking a glance, staring, or literally drooling at beings of their opposite sex. They will be sitting in a park, creating history for their grandchildren with few romantic moves with their soul mates; but somewhere their worried soul will be still floating around their new car or bike parked outside.

They will be genuinely interested in helping their girlfriends’ female friends in the absence of their girlfriends. They will train themselves in multitasking, as skills like calling and texting together from the same phone, might be really helpful, until they have a job or at least their first salary. With increasing age, they concentrate more and more on the brighter side of life, looking for girls. Yeah, girls not women. Just imagine how hard it is for a man to survive this way. They can do nothing but enjoy their misery and be the victim. Conclusively a so called human, named man, can not be blamed for any behavior, for which he is solely responsible. That’s it for today. Adios and see you around  . 

Got United With The Good Me In Banaras (Part 1) On My Way

Started early from Kolkata by road on a sunny summer day, so the beginning of the voyage was ‘awesome’ :) .

Well awesome could be the only word as it’s one of those, let’s say, ‘High frequency words’ we stumble upon every time we interact with someone belonging to today’s young over-energized cohorts.

We preferred to call it a ‘voyage’ then, in the early hours of the day because we started with all flying colors. The pleasant summer mornings and all you know; a good weather can make you use good language too :P .

We borrowed an Air Conditioned (AC) car, so the road travel was not supposed to be baddish. However, God’s ways are not so easy. Especially, if you have hit the highway with an early unexpected AC crash and helplessly witnessing the approaching noon.

By 11am the ‘voyage’ was already reduced to a ‘journey’. We were just done with a few kilometers; a major part of the 700 kilometers (round figure) distance was still to be covered.

On the way at around 12.30 pm ‘The tyre puncture’ (flat tire) happened :( .

It’s a common belief that every incident has both positive and negative effects, so this particular tyre puncture was no different. I call it the ‘The puncture’ because:


-  It delayed our journey by one and half hours

-  It happened in a place, where there were no dhabas (hotels),  shops, or even small tea stalls available.

-  Most importantly that was my first experience, which I am not exactly unhappy about.

My unhappiness was just for show especially for the driver. For him the effect was indeed negative. Being a usually empathetic person, I still feel guilty for the artificial empathy I used there, for the driver.  Even from a distance I could hear him cursing the car.

As for me, I was definitely experiencing a positive effect and a nice time, I had a camera. I borrowed the camera the previous day from a friend. Buying things just because I want it has never been my nature. I have always believed if we want something for good and with no intention of harming anyone, we get it; but yes, we should try to get it from somewhere or someone. One can think it’s silly; well I can’t help agreeing sometimes.

Waiting there, with a background noise of the driver cursing, I made use of my immense photographic skills. Aye, I clicked quite a lot of pictures. I have added a few of them here; just don’t comment about the photography down there if you are a regular photographer. I can’t handle the truth. Message me secretly, and ya, with some tips :) .

 

Finally, we started again at 2 pm. I don’t know if the driver’s long interactive session with the car was somehow helpful, the AC was working all of a sudden. In next one hour we were successful in finding a small hotel, which could offer us some decent food at those late hours.

We commenced the road trip using the National Highway 2 (NH 2) and stuck to it crossing places mainly Shaktigarh, Vardhaman, Panagarg, Durgapur, Raniganj, Asansol and reached Dhanbad, which was one of our halts on the way.

The place Shaktigarh is famous for the sweet ‘langcha’, not a good option for the diabetic. Again in Raniganj you get the best quality ‘mineral of fossilized carbon’ or in simple words ‘coal’. This poor yet essential resource has become a true victim of human unfriendliness towards nature :o .

Leaving ecology for another post and getting back to the route, I must mention that the afternoon and evening drive was the best part. Below are some shots I managed to snap sitting inside the car.

 

From Dhanbad we moved forward crossing Hazaribag district, Dobhi border, Sasaram, Aurangabad, SonBridge, Dehri, Chandoli, and Mughal Sarai before we reached Banaras. From the highway we traveled another six kilometers to reach the proper Banaras we headed for.

Banaras let us in and embraced us at around 8pm. The weather was calm and pleasant in every way. Life already started making sense the moment we stepped out of the car and felt the divine ether of Banaras. ‘I belong here’, was one of those first few lines I said to myself sensing the holiness. If ever in my life I have believed in rebirth, it was then, right that moment. And I can feel it even now. It seems like that feeling was set in inside me forever :).