Ganga ki kasam

Well no kasam as such but just liked the title. Ganga at Kanpur. I love it when it's all swollen and murky. Then it looks like the river they talk about in mythology and literature.

Sparkling flowers

Had this dream the other night of driving up to Gulmarg with ma & pa at night in a taxi. Pa was in the front seat with the driver while I was sitting right behind him with ma.
On a straight road going up into the mountains I see this glorious, milky white full moon rising from behind the snow clad mountain peaks. The moon is so huge and bright that the snow on the peaks are glistening in the moon light and the tall trees appear dwarf in front of the moons magnifence.
I tell pa to hand over his newly purchased SLR camera buy by the time I get it the moon is already up in the sky.
Disapointed I look around to click something else and notice that the mountain side across the narrow valley that we are travelling in is covered with neon coloured small daisy like flowets!
The sight of a whole mountain side covered with dimly lit flowers is mesmerising!

P.S.: in the dream I ask ma whether the flowers are glowing because of the moon light? She says, no it's a special flourescent dye which is injected by Kashmir tourism into the flower buds! So that was a bit of a turn off. But otherwise the sight was indeed amazing!

Shooting Blues

On the beach..........white sand, deep blue sea............black bathing suites............walk back to the resort..........double storeyed white villas with red tiled roofs...........the path had those grey triangular bricks leading from the beach to our villa..........foreigners walking to the beach in the opposite direction (is this some where abroad?)
Then it starts.
Everyone stops and starts looking up and behind us. I notice this after a while. I stop up and look up. And then I see the shooting stars blazing through the sky, coming from the horizon over the sea. Not one or two but like fireworks. White, with long tails and in bundles of 5 to 7. Not once but again and again in a gap of a minute or so.
What does it foretell?

More things change. More they remain the same...

Independence Day. 15th August '12. I start from the late 50s when my maternal grandparents used to stay in Kotwara house on the bank of Gomti. Hardly half a kilometer from where this snap was clicked. My mom used to tell us about the desolate jungle on the opposite bank of Gomti.
If you look at this pic you feel as if nothing much has changed. This picuture has been clicked from Gandhi setu, overlooking Lart of La Martinete college. We see the lush greenery on the banks thanks to the monsoon. The black bathing and grazing beauties as they would have appeared 50-60 years back. And the beauty of this pic is that it has been clicked bang in the center of the city. Next to Taj hotel, Ambedkar park and a multiplex. Thats the beauty of Lucknow. Wilderness is just a stone throw away.
Thats why you come across blue bulls at times on cantt road and tiger threat at times in the suburbs!
Thats why the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Blue Bull Bonanza

31st July '12. On the way to Delhi just after Manaknagar station saw 3 blue bulls standing majestically gazing at my Shatabdi running through the green fields! As they were females should it be blue females? And if I would've taken their video would it have been a blue movie?
With my ingrained hindu upbringing I wonder whether the sighting of these three ladies right at the beginning of my Delhi trip signifies anything. We'll wait & watch.

The place, the time, the moment

Moradabad holds so many memories for me since time immemorial. Ever since my childhood and the time of steam engines I have a vivid memory of Moradabad station. Our train used to pass here in the afternoon so it was where our lunch in steel trays used to come, full steaming and spicy. If the train was late then it was tea in mitti ke kulhad which I used to relish throwing on the tracks from the grilled windows in the sleeper coach while bundled up in our razais and hear them go krrrrack! More then the tea it was the pleasure of breaking my cup, and of everyone elses in the cubicle that I relished. There used to be giant, black steam engines all huffing and puffing with red hot cinders arising from the furnance and the chimney. I think Moradabad junction was the place where they stocked up on the coal keeping in mind the long halt we used to have here.
With the advent of time sleeper coaches gave way to 2nd AC, ste engines to diesel engines and kulhad ki chai to disposable storifom coke cups. After that the tradition changed to buying a 10 buck coke from the soda fountain at the station. I even bought a few brass items finally after crossing this station countless times.
Then there was the early morning of 15th Feb in 2010 which is etched in my memory forever. The mystical orange glow of the halogen lamps streaming through the tinted window panes, the snoring of the co-passengers in the 3rd AC and the red acrylic all added up to intoxicate all my three senses.
This time around I came across a temple and a mosque existing side by side which I was fortunate enough to click.
So many memories from a transit station makes me wonder whether Moradabad junction holds something special and sacred for me................

Sights & Sounds of Moradabad

Roaming on a rickshaw through the bylanes of Moradabad. The hustle bustle, the ramlila jhankis (so soon?), the janmasthmi/eid decorations in the market place with the canopy of silver ropes, the two wheeler parking bang in the middle of the road, town hall, district jail, ifftar namaz, free parking, brass pieces at bartan bazaar, the infamous chadha plaza from where the local hero/villain Monty Chadha started his story. It's all here and more in Moradabad.

Trinocular Nirmal Baba anongst Binocular microscopes

One gets amazed to come across simplest of things amongst most unusual of places. I came across this pic of my favourite Nirmal baba on a slide dispenser between two microscopes in the HOD's chamber in Kotiwal DC, M'bad.
I always used to look at the kind of people attending his so called darbars on TV and wonder where do these weirdos come from. Now I know.

Go Gomti Go!

So this guy gets into the 2nd AC compartment and enquires for berth number M22. M22? No one has a clue what he is talking about till the time a helpful co-passenger doesn't gently remind him that M 22 is his sex and age! Later on the same guy asks how do we come to know where to sit when there are no numbers put anywhere. We politely point out the numbers put up on the side. I casually asked him whether this is the first time he is travelling by train? But apparently our lad had travelled before, or so he said. He's on berth 1 and I am on 2. This will be an amusing train journey. A Rakshabandhan special.
Pallav Bhat hai apnae hero ka naam.

Monsoon madness

At last, at last! The rains have reached the pretty parched soil (and soul) of Lucknow. It has been raining incesstantly since the past 4 hours and I hope this goes on for a long time. The ACs are off, the windows are on and there's everything good, green and glossy in this world.

The Return

I should thank iPhone and it's apps for my return to blogger basically. I had started blogging on Evernote but now I am back.

I am back